


The Twenty-Seventh

by Juliette1713



Category: Northern Exposure
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-10-31 09:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 69,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17847134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliette1713/pseuds/Juliette1713
Summary: January 27, 1993





	1. The First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between Duets and Grosse Point 48230

January 27, 1993

Maggie's alarm chimed at 6:15 on the dot. Wednesday. She had a mail run to Juneau and was supposed to stop off and pick up a package from the hospital for Joel. Not that she was in a hurry to do him any favors, given how petulant he'd been lately, after Mike's arrival. This was equipment for Mike, though, so she was glad to make the run for him, despite having to be at the airstrip, prepping in the subzero temperatures and the near dark just after dawn.

She wanted badly to want Mike, and she was warming to him. Their kiss caught her a little by surprise, of course, and worried the hell out of her. For one, it had been a little disappointing, truth be told. Nervousness on both their parts, she figured, but she tended to judge how the relationship would go based on the first kiss. She was disappointed a lot on both fronts. Nevertheless. There was also her history to consider. Men died on her so frequently, she hardly needed to settle for the most delicate one available for thousands of miles. *Fall* for him, she mentally corrected herself. Maybe. No, she *was* falling for Mike, no matter what Flesichman thought. As his opinion on the topic mattered to her anyway. She'd expected his incredulity over Mike. His scorn. His flippant irritation. Just not his jealously. Now, Joel, well...he was a great kisser.

She put that unhelpful line of thinking quickly out of her mind and stretched to silence the alarm before its second round of chirps began, trying to rally herself out of bed to shower and make coffee. The sigh behind her didn't startle her, but the gruff, tired voice did.

"...time is it?"

She gasped, causing the voice to gasp a half second later, as she turned to face the speaker.

"Fleischman?! What in the name of all things holy are you doing in my bed at this hour? At *any* hour, for that matter?"

Joel was bed-rumpled and with stubble along his jawline, upper lip, and chin - a rarity for his usual fussy appearance. His unkempt look didn't help her shake the thought of kissing him from moments before. She remembered his hair curling through her fingers and the feeling of his stubble moving against her neck that night at his place when they'd almost... She tamped the thought down again, smiling at his curly hair, plastered against one side of his head, untamed on the other, as it stuck out in uneven peaks. He was clad in a t-shirt, she could see, as he sat up to give her a bewildered stare.

"O'Connell?!"

"What are you doing here?!" Maggie gathered the sheet around her instinctively, covering herself hurriedly as she tried to recall what she'd worn to bed last night and whether it was decent, before deciding any state of bedroom dress, even if dowdy, wasn't something she was interested in providing Joel a visual of.

Joel opened his mouth and paused, waiting for words that never came. Another rarity - Joel Fleischman was never at a loss for words.

"Well?" Her voice was stronger, as she seized control of the silence. "In what universe did you think it would be appropriate for you to come over while I was asleep and slip into bed with me? Is this your idea of a practical joke? Some sort of twisted revenge for some rental obligation you feel I'm failing you in? Or something else?"

"O'Connell. I..." He paused, looking embarrassed and confused all at once. "Believe me when I tell you that I have no idea how I got here. Or when I got here. Let alone why I'm here. I only realized I was here when you yelled at me just now. I swear." He sat the rest of the way up and looked around the room. "We're in your house, though, right? I mean, you know where we are, at least?"

"Of *course* we're in my house. Where else would we be?"

"Well, speaking for myself, I'm usually in *my* house at..." he leaned to the side, looking at the clock on her bedside table, "6:17 am on a Wednesday morning. And I'm not. So I thought I'd make sure at least you know where we are."

"Why are you in my bed? With me?"

"I have no idea. I told you. Last I remember, I was falling asleep last night. In my bed. At my place."

She glared at him which caused him to reiterate his position again, somehow feeling defensive, despite this not being his fault. "I don't know! I swear!"

"Did you sleepwalk here or something?"

"It's 5 miles from my place to yours. If I did, it would have taken me all night."

"Well. *Did* you?"

"O'Connell, how many different ways can I put this - I don't know. I have no knowledge of how I came to arrive here. I do not recall. I have no memory of it. I could not tell you if I wanted to."

"Go see if your truck is out front."

Joel moved to stand and then stopped, hesitating. "This is ridiculous, you know?"

"Go!"

"Okay, okay." He rose and walked to her bedroom door, during which time she was relieved to notice he was mostly dressed, wearing sweatpants. As soon as he rounded the corner, she pulled the covers away from her to check out her own clothing. She had a long-sleeved flannel nightshirt on. It hung well past her knees and was decent enough that Joel could see her in it. And unsexy enough to make it unlikely she wore it for - or after - premeditated sex with him. Oh God, *had* they had sex? She didn't remember anything like that happening, but then neither did she remember his getting into bed with her. 

She rose from the bed and made her way to her living room, following him at a safe distance. "Well?"

He was standing by her front door, looking even more confused and what might pass for a little shaken, from someone less insistent on constant stoicism.

"This is strange."

"You're telling me! And you didn't have to wake up in bed next to *you*!" Both 'you's sounded disgusted, the second moreso than the first. "So you didn't drive here?"

"No, my...my truck's not here."

"So you did sleepwalk here, then."

"If I did, I did it barefoot. I have no shoes here. Or socks."

"So you did it barefoot. So what?"

"O'Connell. It's January in Alaska. If I walked 5 miles barefoot, I'd have lost my feet. Which I clearly haven't."

"Well, then you sleepwalked yourself out of your shoes and put them somewhere in my house. Before creepily climbing into bed with me last night."

Only he hadn't. The spent a half hour searching for his shoes and any other clues they could find which would explain any of this. In light of coming up empty handed, any valid explanation of this, her imminent scheduled departure to Juneau, his 8 am appointment, and the totally impossible unbelievability of their situation, they mutually agreed to leave it unanswered and never speak of it again.


	2. The Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in with Love's Labor Mislaid, Northern Lights, and Family Feud, aka the "ugh Mike" time period

February 27, 1993

Joel realized right away that he wasn't in his own bed but kept his eyes closed, delaying confirmation of what he had already surmised. He was fairly sure he knew where he was, and considering everything that had happened in the last two weeks, he was very likely waking up in the one place he'd better not be.

They'd left things on that front in an uneasy truce the other night. She'd moved cheerfully on with Mike and he...well, he was trying to work on his side of things. Cheerful wasn't anywhere near the right adjective, though.

'Mutually desirous incompatibles,' they'd termed themselves. Mutually desirous he agreed with. Incompatible...well. They were certainly that, but was it by nature or by choice? And whose choice?

These weren't his sheets. Hers were soft like this - softer than his, he remembered. Despite her mocking his penchant for creature comforts, her upbringing had conditioned her to choose expensive items without even setting out to. This, the woman who hated him for his perceived snobbiness. The same woman who was sure to yell at him as soon as she woke and found him there, lying on top of her nice, soft, pricey sheets. Which begged the question, of course...again...of how...and why...

They'd neither of them figured it out last time, how he'd come to awaken in her bed. He was genuinely bothered by the impossibility of it all; she, less so. She was more preoccupied with why the desirous part of them overcame their incompatibility that afternoon in the barn...and how to ensure that never happened again. He also knew she'd alleviated her concern over the bed thing by blaming him for it, making it easy to put forever out of her mind. He was just as certain he'd get blamed again this time. Maybe it was someone else he was next to, though. Maybe he'd managed his way to Maurice's this time. A hotel room on the Seine. His old bedroom in his parents' place in Queens. Anywhere but the place he was sure that he was right now. 

He opened his eyes and confirmed it was indeed her bedroom, and then rolled over to face her back. Even in sleep, or at least upon waking, they were oppositional - mirror opposites, side sleepers, both, but facing away from each other.

He weighed whether he'd be better off waking her or waiting for her to try to wake him before realizing everything he could do to try to mitigate her anger would be futile. He might as well get it over with quickly.

"Uh. O'Connell?"

"Hmmm?" She rolled over and snuggled her head against his chest, still not waking. She'd put her arm over his side, hanging against his back, hugging him gently.

He tamped down the little twinge he felt at her affectionate gesture and sudden proximity. Welcome as it all was, it really shouldn't be, and it was going to make things more complicated upon her waking. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook her gently, trying to back up a little. "O'Connell. Hey. Wake up. It's me."

Her eyes fluttered open, and she pulled back from his chest a little to see his face, and smiled for a split second before widening her eyes and pushing back from him, palms to his chest, elbows locking.

"Fleischman, what the hell? What are you doing here?"

"I don't know. I just woke up 10 seconds ago. Here. Again. Apparently."

"Fleischman. Once was bad enough, but now you're making a habit of this behavior. I thought we agreed that we'd give each other space after the whole...thing the other day. The barn...moment. Moments. Hours." She stumbled over her word choice. "Mike and I are together, you know. You just can't come get in my bed with me. I mean, you couldn't before, either, but you really can't now."

"O'Connell, you act as if I'm choosing to do this. Believe me, I'm more than able to resist the temptation of climbing into bed with you, even considering what we did the other day. I'm honestly a lot more concerned with *how* it is that I came to be lying here next to you than that it's *you* I'm specifically next to. Aren't you?"

"No. We already figured out the how; you obviously have a problem with sleepwalking. My only problem with that is that you're making it *my* problem by showing up here when you do it."

"I don't sleepwalk! Never in my life have I had an issue with somnambulism. Not even as a child. I do not have insomnia. Nor parasomnia. Nor sleep paralysis. Nor narcolepsy. No sleep disorders. I don't even snore. And anyway, if I tried to walk here last night, I would have frozen before I got here. As with last time, I don't have a coat anywhere. Shoes. Gloves. Anything one would normally associate with a wintertime midnight stroll through the woods in Alaska. Which, and I think this is obvious, is a concept I hope no one associates with *me* and which is something I unequivocally would not do."

"Well, you obviously did." Her arm had relaxed against his pillow after shoving herself backwards before, and she realized she was mindlessly tracing her fingertips against his chest while they talked, enjoying arguing with him as she usually did. He noticed, his gaze shifted to her hand and she stopped abruptly, realizing what she'd been doing. "This is weird. Us in bed together like this. Can't we get up and have this conversation? Not be horizontal. Be dressed?"

"Okay. You act like I'm naked. I have sweatpants on. A shirt. I'm dressed." 

"Well, I'm not."

His eyes flickered down before he could even think to stop himself. She was wearing a pale pink camisole - she was covered but just barely. 

"I saw that!"

"Sorry." He was tempted to point out he'd seen her naked and could picture it anytime he wanted to and did so often. But he resisted. 

"Look." She rolled over and stood, walking to her dresser and throwing a sweatshirt over her camisole, her legs clad in plaid flannel pants. "I don't care what drives you to come here, but you have to stop." She walked around to sit next to him on "his" side of her bed. He rolled over to face her, sitting partway up on one arm.

"I'd love to. I'm open to any suggestions you have, too. Do you think I want to wake up, not knowing how I came to be where I am?"

"I'm still not totally convinced you're actually surprised by this...Fleischman..." her voice had started to take on that haughty, superior, pseudo-sympathetic tone she'd had lately, anytime the discussion shifted to the two of them...or to Mike. "I mean, it's flattering, I suppose, that your subconscious consistently chooses me over Ed or Ruth Anne or anyone else. But we have a history that you need to consider...a certain context that gives this added signifigance."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh *now* we have a history, do we?"

"We do. That once."

"It was a lot more times than once, which I know you know but like to pretend you forget. I'm pointing it out just for accuracy's sake."

"That one afternoon, then." Her voice had a steely tinge to it, and he worked to conceal the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He had so few trump cards but this was one. Poking at her further on any of this would make this worse, particularly if she'd already decided that this situation was the symptom of some pathetic manifestation of puppy love on his part. He moved to deflect.

"Whatever it was, I assure you that the mere promise of sex with you does not and would not drive me to walk shoeless through the snow for any distance, let alone for 5 miles."

A challenging look flickered in her eyes. "Oh yes it would. If there were any promise to be had. Which there isn't... You were enjoying it plenty, if memory serves."

He let himself smirk a little. "And you weren't? My back looks like I'm the victim of a mauling incident, and I know I recall someone asking me - nay, begging me - not to stop. Several times."

Maggie's cheeks flushed pink, as did her neck. He almost laughed. She opened her mouth to say something he could tell was going to try to distract from him being right. And not be nice. He sat up the rest of the way up in her bed, deciding to cut her off. There was no need to escalate tensions further between them - they were plenty high all on their own. He took a conciliatory tone instead.

"Look. I agree this is bizarre. I'm affirmatively unsettled by it. I know I don't sleepwalk. But I promise you I'm not over here of my own volition. I'm going to call a guy I know who's over at Mount Sinai in their ENT group who's involved in some kind of sleep study thing about apnea. See if he can get me some kind of a monitoring test. I'll prove I don't sleepwalk and...well, if it turns out I do, then I can...then I'll figure out something to do to stop it. But I don't sleepwalk."

"Fine. You work on that. And I'm going to start locking my door at night. Maybe that'll deter these little visits of yours."

"Fine. You know, O'Connell, you really shouldn't leave it unlocked anyway. I mean, all the things that make you feel like you don't need to lock it are also pretty solid evidence of why you really should. Remote, isolated location with no one else around for miles..."

"I have a gun propped up next to the wall right there." She gestured behind him. "Remember that next time you get it into your head to come over and cuddle." He bit his tongue to keep from pointing out she'd been the one to snuggle up to him. They looked at each other a few seconds. 

"I have eggs. Bread for toast. Ruth Anne's preserves. At the risk of encouraging your behavior, if you start some coffee, I'll make breakfast after I take a shower. For both of us, that is. I mean, since you're already here and presumably in need of a ride back to your place. Can you handle making coffee?"

"Yes. You know, I graduated cum laude in pre-med with honors in my chemistry minor, and I have a medical degree from Columbia. I can see why you'd assume I'm too stupid to make coffee."

"Oh are you a doctor? You've never mentioned that." She rolled her eyes but then smiled a little at him. "You do have to admit you're pretty helpless otherwise, Fleischman." Her eyes had a teasing sparkle to them. There was something fond and ardent shining there that surprised him and which was something she obviously couldn't conceal. She stood, smoothing her shirt nervously before walking towards her bathroom. "Mugs are in the second cabinet on the right, as are clean filters and the coffee. Surely you can locate the coffee maker, since it's out in plain sight. Do not touch anything else in my kitchen or try to cook; I'm very picky about my scrambled eggs. See ya in a bit."

He narrowed his eyes at her, smiling some, as she shut the door behind her. Even with no makeup on, mussed hair, and swimming in a too-big sweatshirt, she scared him a little. And was beautiful. What an inexplicable situation this was, and twice now it had happened. How the hell did he wake up here? There were no logical answers. There weren't even ready illogical answers. She was probably right to just ignore how this came to pass and move on, assuming it wouldn't happen again. Because surely it wouldn't. Especially now that it had happened twice. But the logical side of his brain couldn't quite let this go. He shook his head, still pondering, and rose to walk to her kitchen.


	3. The Third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between the Big Feast and Kaddish for Uncle Manny

March 27, 1993

Joel hadn't set his alarm the night before, relishing at least the opportunity to sleep in. Even on a Saturday, though, his mind snapped awake right on time at 6:03.

He never set the clock to "even" time increments - never 6 on the dot or exactly 6:15. He liked odd numbers - prime numbers specifically - and would always sacrifice a few minutes' sleep to ensure the right sort of number would be showing on the clock when he woke. No matter how clunky and difficult the available clock made it to do so - and the one in this cabin was excruciatingly difficult to set - he'd always done this. His mother had rolled her eyes and let him set his own alarm at an early age, rather than risk his ire by picking wrong. Elaine, for her part, had teased him about it good-naturedly, but acquiesced, never really understanding it. It was superstition, plain and simple. He couldn't even explain what he feared if he didn't do this - it was just done. As long as he kept it to himself, his reputation as logical remained intact. Maggie, though, would hassle him endlessly about this, should she ever realize that even he had this little foible of a phobia.

Maggie. He smiled at the thought of her. His feelings for her weren't going away but, like his alarm clock psychosis, he could keep that secret snug within the private confines of his mind. It wasn't a crush - it had progressed far beyond that. But it wasn't love, either. Not yet. There wasn't a word that quite got it right. Besotted. Intoxicated. Beguiled. Enraptured. Enamored. None were adequate descriptions. Like their struggle to define what they were to each other, he - even with his outsized vocabulary and 780 verbal on the SATs - couldn't quite find the right word for what he felt for her. 

Amorous was on the list, for sure. He definitely wanted her. Again. And again and again. Despite everything he'd said in his office back after when they gave into temptation, the Cohos, or whatever it was, that afternoon had only served to intensify this impulse within him, not relieve it. Which was unhelped by the fact that having knowledge of her in that way very often colored how he saw her. What were once innocent statements or looks appeared far less innocent now that they'd been together in another context. Plus his subconscious visited the impulse often. Even now, he'd woken on the verge of a reenactment of those events as he'd slept. Which was not uncommon. But it had ended just as it was getting good.

He turned in bed to lay flat on his back, letting his mind wander where it had been headed back to after the diversion of waking. Another thing Maggie would never let him live down, were she to know he did this, thinking of her. Of them. As he turned from laying on his side, he edged his hand down his torso, intending to at least enjoy his mind's insistence on thinking about Maggie...and stopped when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. And realized a moment later he wasn't alone in bed. Which, given his imminent plans and current physical situation wasn't a positive development. 

He rolled onto his side, making sure the blanket was well-positioned to conceal what he needed to beneath it. Even without having seen who it was, he knew who it had to be. On the bright side, the whole transient waking thing was clearly not going to be his fault this time - finally, his was the bed being invaded. 

The logical side of his brain immediately started to compile evidence to corroborate that her being here next to him was an impossibility - as if that had ever mattered before. He always locked his door at night. He was a light enough sleeper that he'd have heard her truck pull up, not to mention someone walking across the squeaky floors of his cabin and climbing into bed next to him. Plus, he remembered waking once - at 11:32 - and she was definitely not there then. 

Her back was facing him, as with the last time they'd ended up in this predicament. Waking her was sure to startle her, as she likely wouldn't recognize his bedroom on sight. It wasn't as if it could be helped, of course, so he put his hand to her shoulder and rubbed it gently. 

To his surprise - and soon after, horror - her response this time was not to roll over to face him and yell, but instead to wiggle herself backwards against him, her back resting against his chest and her ass nestled right up against the part of him he'd so carefully concealed a minute ago. His arm ended up draped over her across her midsection in what could be seen as either a possessive or an affectionate gesture. He could guess how she was going see it, the moment she realized it was his arm. He moved his hand to rest on her upper thigh, trying to tilt her hips away from his a little, when he felt her body stiffen against him.

"So help me, if that's your hand, Fleischman..." came her sleepy but irritated voice.

"Who else's would it be, out of curiosity?"

"I don't know, but it shouldn't be yours. And I won't even stop to consider what else of yours I feel touching me right now. Why are you back in my bed again?"

"Well, good morning to you, too. I'd like to point out you're actually in *my* bed this time."

"I am not..." He rolled his eyes and waited a few seconds for her to confirm. Almost on cue, she rolled over to face him, still dangerously close to him. "What did you do, Fleischman, escalate to sleep-kidnapping? How did I get here? And why do you keep doing this?"

He should have known that he'd catch the blame in all iterations of this scenario. He was going to try for the high road here, and not take the bait.

"O'Connell, come on. How is this my fault this time?"

"Because it is. Oh, God. What am I even wearing?" She pulled the blanket back and looked down at herself.

"You're always so worried about that; what do you normally wear in bed?" He leaned forward peering down underneath the blankets with her, swiftly incurring a scornful look. 

"Nightgowns. Not that's not any of your business." She pulled the blanket tight against her again.

"Hey, my bed, my business." He put his head back down on his pillow.

"Not when I'm in it with you." She put hers back down on his pillow, where it had been before. God she was close to him. Their faces were just a few inches apart. They were never this close. Part of him wanted to prolong it and delay her departure, for long as he could. "You sleep okay?"

Her face softened a little in response to his polite question and conciliatory tone of voice. "Yeah. Thanks. Considering everything, yeah. You're a very still, very quiet sleeper. I'll give you that much."

"As opposed to...?"

"Well, Mike for example. He rolled over every 10 minutes it seemed like - all night long. Snored, too. And he'd do this thing, where he -" As her story appeared to be picking up steam, he interrupted her.

"You know, I really don't need to know every detail about what he's like in bed. I'm glad you think I'm better, I guess, but..." He absolutely hadn't meant it that way and stopped talking the moment the dual meaning occurred to him. Awkward silence followed, which hung in the air between them long enough he felt he needed to say something else. He saw her eyebrow arch a little, smiling, and saw that look in her eyes for a second. 

He needed to think of something to say and stop looking at her, so he sat up quickly, turning away from her to put his feet on the ground. "I didn't mean 'better' like... nevermind...do you want coffee? I, uh, don't have much here for breakfast other than cereal. But I can make coffee. You know. If you want. And you're welcome to cereal, too. If you're hungry. I have milk. Bowls." He had to stop talking; he sounded like a babbling idiot. He rose and headed for his bathroom door.

"Okay. Kind of early to get up on a Saturday, isn't it? It's still dark out... I guess we should get up, though. We can't exactly lay here together. Yeah, sure, make some coffee. I'll be out in a second. I'll peruse your cereal choices."

Joel grabbed his robe from its hook, swung it onto himself, tied it, and walked out his bedroom door. He was uncomfortable about his Freudian slip. More than that, he was still pissed about the whole thing with Mike and annoyed she seemed so willing to casually bring it up, like it hadn't fundamentally altered the path they'd been on together and driven a huge wedge between them. And hurt him a little. A lot.

"Fleischman?"

"Yeah?" His hand caught the door frame to stop himself as he exited, and he leaned back into the room to look at her. She was sitting up in his bed looking at him, with that same look in her eyes - one which shot right through him in a way that he could swear she meant for it to.

"For whatever it's worth...you are better. Much better." She smiled, eyebrow raising again. 

That was a hell of a peace offering, and he smiled back at her before walking out towards the kitchen.


	4. The Fourth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just before Kaddish for Uncle Manny

April 27, 1993

Shit, it had happened again. And he was back in her bed this time. 

Today, the sunlight had woken him, something that would otherwise be a welcome sign of impending longer days and comparatively warmer weather. Right now, though, all it did was give him a view of the woman who was mere moments away from yelling at him. She was facing him today, which was different. Her face was peaceful and pretty in repose.

He thought he'd cracked the code for a bit - not the how or why but the when. The pattern had seemed to be the last Saturday of the month. He'd purposely stayed up well past midnight reading on Friday night, only to feel like an idiot when he woke up alone and in his own bed Saturday morning. Waking up here on a Tuesday was unexpected. He worked backward in his mind now, thinking about the first time, and then realizing he'd been wrong. It had been a Wednesday that time, not a Saturday. Obviously, the when was no more understandable than the why and the how. Neither of which he pretended to understand.

He was at least grateful to have a co-victim in all of this, otherwise he'd long ago have assumed Cicely had finally his claimed mind, having long ago robbed him of his freedom, youth, and pride. But it had given him Maggie. On which subject...

"O'Connell. Hey." He put his hand on her hip, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It, uh, it happened again."

Without opening her eyes, she groaned and then asked, "Whose place this time?"

"Yours. You don't just know from your sheets? They're softer."

She arched her back, stretching, and resettled herself, her eyes still closed. He thought about taking his hand off her leg, but if she didn't mind enough to mention it, he'd keep it there. "Yours are soft. Sort of. Thread count's too high to be really soft, though."

"I always buy the highest I can get. How can thread count be too high?"

"Too many threads in there will eventually just turn everything all stiff and scratchy."

"What, is there some kind of a law of diminishing returns for linens at work?"

"Kind of. You have to do the touch test, Fleischman, not just rely on shorthand like thread count." Her eyes finally opened to look at him, amused but trying not to look that way. "How'd this happen again?"

"If I knew, don't you think I'd stop it?"

"You would assume you have control over whatever 'it' is. Typical." She rolled her eyes. "What day is it?"

"I've already thought all of that through, too. It's a Tuesday. Not a Saturday. If that's where you were going with that line of thinking. I thought this happened on the last Saturdays of the month, too, but then I remembered the first time was a Wednesday. So there's no pattern. No rhyme or reason to this. No explanation for it."

"I wasn't going anywhere with anything. But I do like the idea of you trying valiantly to apply the scientific method to unexplained phenomena. And failing."

"Go ahead and laugh, O'Connell. I can't think up a valid explanation for any of this, but neither can you. You want science? That sleep test you insisted I take? I got my results back last Friday, and I'm definitely not sleepwalking. No sleep abnormalities of any kind. Consequently, there is no answer. And at this point, I'm willing to just write it off as yet another way Alaska is driving me slowly crazy."

She was smiling at him, fondly. 

"What? Oh, I assume all of this makes you happy?"

"Kind of. But not for the reasons you think."

"Not because I'm giving up on my sanity? Succumbing to whatever it is that passes for reality up here?"

"No."

"Why then?"

"It's nothing. And I don't feel like telling you now."

"O'Connell. Really? What? Just tell me. Come on, I hate this game women play. If you want to tell me something, just do. Don't make me demean myself and beg you for it."

Her smile grew, eyes taking on a sly gleam. "Believe me, if I wanted to see you beg, I'd..." It disappeared and her face relaxed into friendlier smile. "Nevermind. I was just thinking that it's nice to have the sun up when I wake up. Makes the days happier."

It was obvious that wasn't the thought that had amused her so much a second ago. "Uh huh. Sure. But let's go back to you making me beg. Finish that thought."

She rolled her eyes. "That's what you've hung onto here?"

"I'm just trying to picture me begging you for anything. Ever."

"Really? Oh I can think of something I have that you want."

His breath froze in his throat. Was she...

"Fleischman. 30 seconds, you'd be begging. Pleading. If I wanted you to...watch." Whatever the vocal equivalent of that flicker he saw in her eyes was now thick in her voice. She shifted in the bed, moving closer to him, about to do something. She moved without breaking eye contact and put her hand on his shoulder, sliding it to the back of his neck, pulling them even closer together. She was definitely going to do something. And he was definitely willing to beg for whatever it was. He swallowed hard, unable to move, hypnotized by the look in her eyes. "Hold on, it's Tuesday?" she interjected, her voice serious and unteasing again, the hypnotic spell evaporating.

"Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah. Today's Tuesday." 

She rolled away from him abruptly, looking at the clock behind her and then jumping up out of bed. "Crap. I have to go. I have a charter out of Anchorage at 1, and it's already 7:30. Get up. I'll drop you at your office on my way to the airstrip."

"My office? O'Connell, I'm in sweats and a t-shirt. I haven't shaved. Showered. I don't have shoes. I need to go home. I can't show up at work in an outfit like that."

"Well, have Ed or someone drive you home at lunch. Your house is in the wrong direction, and I'm already really late." She flew through her room, opening and closing drawers and her closet door, tossing elements of her outfit onto the foot of the bed as she gathered them. "We really should leave a change of clothes and some extra shoes at each other's place. If this is going to keep happening, I mean."

"I'm sorry - are you proposing I assemble a 'go bag' for future incidents of this nonsense?"

"If you don't want to go to work in your night clothes, it might be a good idea. Come on," she tugged on the comforter still over his legs, "Get up. We really need to get going. I'm going to take a quick shower, and then we'll go."

He stood up and helped her make her bed. "Don't you think Marilyn's gonna read a lot into you dropping me off half dressed?"

"I don't know what to tell you. Marilyn knows I wouldn't sleep with you, so she won't read too much into any of this... I'm going to have maybe 15 minutes for my pre-flight checks. I'm so glad I did my flight planning last night." She stood at her dresser, unfolding a pair of socks.

He stood by the head of her bed, tucking her sheet underneath her mattress, watching her reflection in the mirror. "The hole in your theory is that we *did* sleep together, and she knows that..."

He saw her hands pause in their work as she considered his point. The look on her face was inscrutable. He decided to finish his thought. 

"...so it's not completely impossible for someone to think that we might want to do it again sometime. Is it?"

She didn't respond, but he saw her reflection smile in the mirror. She turned, still smiling but trying to hide it, grabbed the pile of clothing, and headed into her bathroom. "Don't touch anything in here. I'll be out in a sec."


	5. The Fifth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between seasons four and five

May 27, 1993

"Ughhhh." A groan next to him caused his eyes to pop open. Here we go again, he thought. His place again this time. But they were much more physically entangled than usual. His hand was already on her hip, and her feet were tucked in between his ankles as they lay curled and facing each other on their sides.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. My shoulder hurts. And you're here. Apparently. Or I'm there. Which is it this time? I'm too tired and sore to open my eyes."

"My place. Are you okay?"

"I must have sprained something stacking wood yesterday. Then, I got next to no sleep last night because I couldn't get comfortable. And it now hurts just to move. But I'm fine though." She laid flat on her back, wincing as she moved. "Ow!"

"You don't sound fine." He sat up next to her, watching her move, trying to resist the urge not to immediately correct her improper use of diagnostic terminology, knowing it would piss her off. "Is that your medical diagnosis, a sprain?"

"Fleischman, don't start with me. My shoulder - and my neck - both really hurt, and I have to fly for six hours today. It's going to be exceptionally uncomfortable." She'd closed her eyes again, but he could see from how she was contorting her face as she tried to breathe that she wasn't exaggerating.

"Turn over."

"What do you mean, turn over? Which way? And why?"

"Lay prone. And because I'm asking you to."

"Prone?"

"It means on your stom-"

"Fleischman, I know what it means! My problem is not my vocabulary. It is that you're essentially asking me to turn my back on you while we're in bed together. I feel entitled to at least ask why."

"Because I did an 8 week rotation in an osteo and PT clinic, and I think can help loosen things a little. Make you feel a little better. Roll over. Which shoulder?"

She turned over again, to lay flat on the bed, complaining as she moved. "Ouch...you know, I'd feel better if you just left me alone. You can't do anything, anyway. It's sprained. And it's the right side."

"O'Connell? You've said it twice now, so I can't not say this - medically speaking, it's not a sprain. I think you mean 'strain'. But it's probably neither."

"Either way. Who cares?" Her voice was irritated.

"I do. And you should, too. Because if it's neither, I think I can help you with this."

He turned and straddled her lower back with his knees, sliding his palms up her back over her t-shirt feeling along her shoulder blades.

She jumped feeling his knees beside her hips and his hand moving on her and then yelped a little from the pain that resulted from moving so suddenly. "Ouch! What the hell are you doing? This isn't an invitation to grope me. This is why I didn't want to turn my back to you, you know."

"I promise you, this is strictly medical. It's the only position I can be in to do this. Now, I want you to tell me if this-"

"Ow!!! Fleischman! Damn it! I already told you that hurts! Why are pushing on it?"

"Sorry. But see? It's not your shoulder that hurts." 

"The hell is isn't!"

"It's really not." He moved two fingers down the middle of her back, along her shoulder blade, pausing over and pressing gently on the area his fingers had glanced across when she'd jumped before. "It's right here that your problem lies. What you're feeling is referred pain from this myofascial tension in your scapula. Your upper back. Your shoulder complex. No wonder your neck hurts. Here. Just relax - I promise I'll be gentle and this will feel really good." Something about the way he said it - and its subtext, intended or otherwise - gave her goosebumps. Which didn't go unnoticed by him. The resulting silence made it awkwardly clear they were both thinking the same thing, and had dirty minds.

He desperately sought a less loaded topic, carefully pushing his fingertips along the muscles of her back. "Ummm...how'd you do this to yourself anyway?"

"Stacking some extra firewood for Ruth Anne. Repetitive twisting motion. I don't know. You're the doct- ohhh." This was a happy, grateful noise, the opposite of her earlier ire-filled ones.

"Is that okay? I'm not pushing too hard, am I? I'm almost on it now. It's going to hurt a little bit while I do this. But you'll always feel better when I'm done with you. It's my guarantee." A second round of wording that sounded a little lewd, but he really hadn't meant it that way either time.

Her breath was shallow and panting. 

"Take slow, deep breaths for me, O'Connell. Okay? You're too tense - you need to relax a little for this to feel good." Another unfortunate choice of words.

"Oh, no, it is good. Really good. You have strong hands....ohhh...Oh! Fleischman, right there...don't stop...that feels amazing..."

Her wording - not to mention the moaning and breathing - was not helping him, particularly with his knees straddling her like they were. His mind scrambled for another safe topic.

"Here. Turn your head to the left, okay? We'll try to stretch this out. So where are you flying later?"

"Ohhhh...Sitka and back. Charter. Geologist. Fleischman, I had no idea you could do something like this..."

"Here. Put your right hand across your lower back like this. That'll stretch it out more while I work on it." He put his right palm to the hand on her back and kept massaging her with his left. "I'm sorry I woke up here again this morning."

"Oh I'm not. Not right now. I'd be willing to wake up next you every morning for the rest of time if you would do this..." 

He laughed. "Yeah, well, if we woke up in bed together every day, I'd be exhausted and you'd never want to get out of bed again..." He just couldn't keep non-sequiturs from falling out of his mouth so he decided to shut up for awhile and focus on what he was doing. A few minutes later, he could tell he'd gotten things to relax a little.

"Okay. I'm going to have to stop - doing too much will inflame it and make it hurt all over again. You need ice next, really. And an anti-inflammatory. Let me help you roll over, too, so it doesn't tense right back up from you using it." He rolled her onto her back, his arm gently supporting her back and neck as he turned her.

He'd leaned close to move her, and his face was inches from hers when he'd laid her on her back. She smiled at him and, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her. Just a gentle touch of his lips to hers, but they both froze in response. His alarm chimed 6:13 a few seconds later, providing him with a diversion he readily accepted. 

"I'm sorry." He stood up hastily from her bed and fumbled with the clock until it stopped chirping. He snapped into physician mode, grateful for fact-based statements and a noncontroversial topic. "I'll get you some ice to put underneath you and start some coffee and take a shower. I want you to lay on your back on that ice for 15 minutes, not moving, and try to relax. I'm going to give you 3 ibuprofen right now, and you can take that every 6 hours today. It won't impair your cognition or ability to fly, but it will keep everything from locking back up on you again. That's a prescription dose, so don't take it any longer than today. And don't just do it again whenever you're sore - ask me first. I want to see you tomorrow afternoon if it still hurts, too. Okay?"

"Okay. I do feel better." She couldn't see him, staring up at his ceiling, but his voice was rattled-sounding, she could hear. Somehow his kiss had made her feel more comfortable, not less.

"Good. Let me get you the ice and some medicine. Don't move. I'll help you up to take it when I come back." He exited and returned with a glass of water and an ice pack, and got pills from his bathroom. 

"You're pretty good at playing doctor sometimes, you know?" She said, her eyes watching his try to avoid hers as he helped her sit up and then back down to take her medication and place the ice pack beneath her back. "I almost believe you're competent, and you can have a charming bedside manner. When you're trying to."

"Yeah well..." If she wasn't mistaken, he was blushing slightly, his eyes unmistakeably happy. "It's just ibuprofen and some ice, you know. You weren't anywhere even near this thankful - or impressed - when I literally saved your life that time with your appendix. And that took at least a little skill, even you'd have to admit." He sat on the bed next to her. "But thanks, O'Connell. Hey, and I'm sorry about..." His eyes - nervous and regretful - looked at her lips for an instant, as he struggled with how to word his apology.

She hooked her forefinger in the collar of his t-shirt, pulling him down towards her. "It's okay. Really." She kissed him quickly and smiled at him. "And now we're even, so don't worry about it. Go take your shower."


	6. The Sixth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During period after The Big Tree

June 27, 1993

Joel woke, aware of a hand on his back. Here we go again, he thought. Cicely had clearly driven him far enough over the edge that he'd just accepted as a recurring annoyance that he and Maggie travelled through time and space regularly. It was her turn again this time, apparently. His eyes were still closed but he knew they were at his place. Her place smelled like her, he knew her sheets, the sounds of her place. It was infinitely better insulated, both against sound and against the elements. He felt the warm air of midsummer seeping into his room, thick and humid. At her house, despite no air conditioning, it felt different. Nicer.

He knew without thinking it was a Sunday. He'd had an uncharacteristically social night the night before, badgered and bullied into hosting a night of playing cards at his house with Holling, Maurice, and Ed. They'd decided on poker when Chris showed unexpectedly, realizing an odd number wouldn't work anymore for a pairs game. Holling had brought a jug of his moonshine, and, though refusing the first several rounds, Joel had eventually succumbed to peer pressure, swigging a slug or two later on in the evening. He still felt it some this morning, despite having sat out most of the servings with Ed, who'd driven the older two men home at the end of the night. On the whole, it had been an entertaining evening, and Joel had even ended up thirty dollars richer on the deal. Plus, he was waking up next to Maggie now. He couldn't complain too much.

"O'Connell?" They usually started out by pretending they didn't know who was there, as if it would or could be anyone else at this point. Theater, essentially. A way to reiterate how impossible this was.

She pulled her hand from his back and draped her arm across him, pulling herself close to him. With each incident, she'd gotten more and more affectionate, at least at the outset - something he never minded but was always a little surprised about. It never lasted long. Almost all of the rest of their normal daily interactions were at arm's length and a little hostile. In these mornings, she was different. Softer. Something he relished a little. "'Morning. You're here, huh?"

"Actually you're here. Again. Sorry."

"It's okay. One of those things, I guess. I wonder if it's something we do that makes us end up a certain place. You know, yours instead of mine." She rubbed her forehead against the middle of his back. "Nevermind. What am I saying? None of this makes sense...what'd you do last night?"

"Oh, played cards. Poker. Holling. Chris. Ed. Maurice. Won thirty bucks. What about you?"

"Kept Shelly company. I helped her close up the Brick, then we watched a movie together."

"Huh. What movie?"

"Why?" Her voice started to sound more awake, taking on its characteristically suspicious tone.

"I can't imagine you and Shelly having the same taste in film, that's all. Girl movie or real movie?" 

He expected the smack he got on the shoulder, but it was still harder than he'd anticipated. "Ow! So a girl movie, then? What was it?"

"Dirty Dancing," she mumbled, sullenly, which only made him laugh.

"Your pick?" He asked sarcastically, effectively squelching all chance of her admitting it had actually been her choice.

"Shelly was lonely; she needed cheering up. She's pregnant and her back and feet hurt, and here Holling left her to close everything up alone while he came over to play cards and drink with you idiots. He was three sheets by the time Ed dumped him back at home, you know. I can't believe you guys actually drink that stuff he makes. It's basically gasoline."

"Ed and I don't. Well, I had about a shot's worth of it. That's it, though. I'm still feeling it a little, to be honest."

"Good. You deserve it." She slid the hand she'd just hit him with down his chest, pulling herself closer still, tickling him with her fingernails before letting her hand linger there. "Mmmm, I'm kind of glad this is one of those days. You know?"

He'd just been thinking along the same lines but was surprised to hear her say it. "You are?"

"I miss this. I mean, a little bit. Don't you? Waking up next to someone, that is. Not you. Just someone. It's been a long time..."

"Yeah. I do..."

"Do you ever miss Elaine?" She was close enough that he felt her breath on the back of his neck as she asked the question; both her proximity and the topic caught him off guard.

"Her? Me?"

"Yes her. And of course you. You never think about her? I find that impossible to believe. You were engaged for, what, 15 years?" She was tracing her fingertips lightly across his chest as she questioned him. With his back to her, he couldn't use her eyes to decipher her thoughts and he wasn't sure what to read into her actions or words, as usual, and so proceeded with caution and honesty, as if under interrogation.

"Oh come on, it wasn't that long. I asked her to marry me in med school. Well, she told me I needed to ask her, but I was going to anyway. Eventually. Sometimes I think about her, yeah. Not much anymore, though. It's been a really long time."

"You don't miss her?"

"I...I'm not..." He was about to say he wasn't sure how to answer the question. If it had been his mother asking, there'd have been an agenda he'd want to understand. With Maggie, he'd never work out what she was really asking and so stuck with the truth. "No. No, I don't miss her."

"Hmmmm..." Maggie's pensive sound accompanied her hand stilling. "You didn't stay in touch after her, uh, visit?" Maggie suddenly seemed to realize just how intimate their current positions were and moved her hand away to press against his back, unwrapping herself from around him slightly.

"No. We got our closure finally. And I'm content to leave things closed, too. What made you...actually...what's today? June the...what?"

"27th."

"Huh. It's her birthday. Well, yesterday was. I'd forgotten until just now. Her 30th, too...huh..."

"I thought you were older than her."

"I am. A little bit. Why?" Her fingertips traced along his back while they talked. She seemed to just keep touching him today.

"But you're not 30 yet."

"Yes I am."

"When did you turn 30?!?"

"When most people do. On my birthday."

"We missed it?!" He was a little relieved to at least know she'd actually just not known when it was, rather than chosen not to mark the occasion.

"Yeah. It was a long while back. It's fine, though. I'm too old for birthdays. The funny thing is, though, I was kind of surprised. I mean, no one ever forgets my birthday."

"Your arrogance knows no bounds, you know that, Fleischman?"

"What?" He rolled over to face her. He smiled a little at her pale pink top sprinkled with purple flowers. Her night clothes - what he'd seen of them at least - were always much girlier than he'd have guessed of her. "Why is saying that arrogant?" 

"Acting like we'd all know your birthday intuitively like it's some widely celebrated holiday."

He grinned at her. "Well...I mean, it *is*."

"What is?"

"I'm a New Year baby. Just barely, but I am. Born at 12:33 am, January 1, 1963. You know that."

"I really don't. I don't think anyone here does either. New Year's, huh? Interesting..."

"Why?"

"I've always heard New Year's babies are...something. Intense or lucky or...something. I can't remember what."

"Wow, what a fun anecdote. Thanks for sharing it." 

She glared back at him in response.

"Anyway, my birthday is January 1. And I'm 30 already."

She sat up on one arm to look at him in a way he couldn't quite place. "I am sorry no one did anything. Because you're right - not that you'd deserve it, but we'd have remembered a birthday like that. We would have done something for you. If we ever knew."

"I told you. I really don't care."

"Really? You've lived here for three birthdays now and no one's ever celebrated them. Or acknowledged them. That doesn't bother you any?"

"No, it means I'm doing a good job of remaining professionally detached. A fantastic job of it."

"I think it's a little bit sad. But I guess it's not like you know anyone else's birthdays."

"I do, too. Marilyn's is August 1. Ed's is June 23rd." His eyes crinkled as he smiled, poking her shoulder. "And *yours* is-"

She swatted his hand as he paused. "I know you don't know my birthday."

"-and yours is September 29th."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do. It's your birthday. Guess I'm just a nicer, more attentive person than you."

"You didn't get me anything ever. Not even a card."

"I did so. Last year, I gave you a thousand milligrams of cephalexin and amoxicillin and risked life and limb by getting into a helicopter with you. *And* stayed up all night pissing off the attending by watching him and second guessing everything he did. What more of a gesture do you want?"

"Fine. Jeez, you really don't feel adequately thanked for that, do you? It's twice you've brought it up since then. What would be a sufficient thank you, for the next time that happens?"

"What I really want you won't give me..." He'd meant to append it with a quip about New York, but it came out sounding seedier than he'd liked, and was clearly received that way, the quirk of her eyebrow told him. Plus, being dismissive of Cicely was the quickest way to bring this otherwise pleasantly banter-filled conversation to a rapid close. He quickly changed tone. "And you only have one appendix. So the window has already closed on thank yous."

"I'm not letting you hold this over my head forever." She smiled at him but the look in her eyes changed to something carnal. "I have an idea."

She slid her hand across his chest, rolling over to crawl on top of him. 

"Whoa. O'Connell. Hey, um... I'm joking about the helicopter thing...I mean...we...you...we don't have to..."

"Gosh, you get jumpy fast..." She leaned in and kissed him gently, her lips lingering on his. "I just want things even. What do you want that you think I can't give you?"

He opened his mouth, unsure of what his answer would be. He figured he'd let her talk until he was forced to.

"Hmmm?" She ran her hands through his hair, her lips still close to his, eyes fixed on his. 

What was right thing to do here, he wondered? His mouth still lacked words - surely at some point his mind would wake up and supply him with some. Either his logical side would answer and say they didn't work and they shouldn't be risking their tenuous friendship by complicating things with sex again. Or. Or the rest of his body would prevail, tell his mind to shut up, wrap both arms around her, roll them over, and enjoy the hell out of whatever she was willing to do with him. His logical side was losing out to the look on her face and his recollection of that afternoon together. She pressed her body against his, and he closed his eyes. He felt her lips start to brush against his again...when his phone rang.

She sat straight up, still straddling his hips, staring down at him in surprise. He leaned over and grabbed the handset from its cradle on his nightstand. 

"Hello?...Ma?! Is everything okay?" His face changed from bewildered to worried in an instant.

Maggie maneuvered herself off of him and moved to sit next to him, her face sympathetic and concerned. Her hand rested on his knee.

"Good. I'm glad. But, Ma? I mean, you remember about the time change, right? It's not even 7 am yet here, which is why I thought something might... ...No, of course I was awake, but... ...*Yes* I'm alone. What kind of a question is that?" He looked at Maggie and shook his head, rolling his eyes slightly. "Sure thing. I will keep you posted on that front. As always. So what do you need? Uh huh..."

Maggie stared at him for a few seconds, before removing her hand from his leg and rising from his bed. He watched her retreating form with curiosity - her pink shirt matched her pink and purple plaid flannel pants. She left his room, he figured, to be considerate and let him finish his call in privacy. Which, if hadn't been so disoriented from the quick succession of changes in events of the last few minutes, he would have realized sounded nothing like the overfamiliar, nosy Maggie he knew.

He talked to his mom for another 10 minutes before reassuring himself everything was fine and steering the conversation to a close and hanging up. He put his robe on and left his bedroom, calling ahead to Maggie as he did.

"Hey, I'm sorry about that. She has a real knack for timing. Always has. Did you want me to start...some...coffee? O'Connell?"

He hesitated, not seeing her in the kitchen, and then finished his thought while his body did a slow rotation, scanning his living room. She wasn't there either. He was about to check his porch, amazed by Maggie's sudden emphasis on giving him such an extreme degree of privacy, when the logical side of his brain started to wake up and catalog the many bad signs, beginning with his evasive - and untrue - answer to his mother's nosy question. And then he saw her note.

She'd torn a sheet from the notepad he'd left on his coffee table, and it sat folded into a little tent on his kitchen countertop. Inside it said _I left a pair of old tennis shoes under your couch awhile back in case this ever happened again. It's a nice day, so I decided to walk home. I don't want to be the reason you lie to your mother. See ya. - M_


	7. The Seventh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between seasons 4 and 5

July 27, 1993

It was hot again. The first time it had gotten hot in Alaska, he'd been excited. When he'd moved here, he figured he wouldn't see a real summer again until he was released and could move back to New York.

Not that New York in the summertime was enviable. The heat and humidity were unbearable on their own, but the city's smells - never pleasant - intensified in the humid, windless air, and clung along the sidewalks, mixing with the choking exhaust fumes from the cabs. But it was warm, at least, so on the coldest Alaskan nights, he'd find himself fondly remembering the heat of the city. And that first 85 degree day his first July in Cicely had been a pleasant surprise. 

Now was his third July, and the charm and novelty of heat in Alaska had long since worn off. He'd spent a sleepless night in his muggy bedroom, despite the window air conditioning unit Maggie had grudgingly installed to make Elaine think she was a nice person and that Joel was the unreasonable party. A gesture which worked until Elaine started to suspect Joel had feelings for Maggie, after which no amount of niceness mattered. She, like Maggie, could turn on a dime with people like that - and did on Maggie, who became a frequent source of fights between them at the end. Unlike Maggie, Elaine had limited capacity to forgive. Elaine, who felt a lifetime away now.

Joel had removed item after item of clothing in the heat of the night and kicked his quilt to the foot of the bed, sleeping only under his sheet and clad now in just boxer shorts. His state of semi-undress made him roll over warily to check...and of course this was one of those mornings. 

She was already awake, waiting for him and smirking from her side of the bed. She reached forward without warning and hooked her thumb under where the sheet met his stomach, which made him jump. "Tell me you aren't naked under this sheet." The way she said it made it sound like she might not have minded if he was. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on his part.

He brushed her hand away, feeling himself blush, before trying to match her brazenness. "No. Boxers. Tell me you *are* naked." He reached for the sheet tucked around her shoulders. She pulled backwards quickly.

"Don't you dare. And anyway, I'm in a camisole. Sorry. Maybe next time. I have no pants on, though. So that's kind of fun..." She raised an eyebrow, smiling. "Is it Tuesday?"

"Uh, yeah." He'd have really rathered talk about how she was next to him in underwear and not much else. And what almost happened last time they'd woken up together. Before he pissed her off and probably set them back 20 years by denying her existence to his mother with her sitting right beside him. They hadn't discussed it since, but he'd thought of it often, cursing himself each time, in the weeks that had elapsed since.

She smiled at him enigmatically, and the growing silence made him uncomfortable, compelling him to speak again.

"How long have you been laying there staring at me?"

"Long enough. Why does this keep happening to us?"

"Now you ask? It's been going on since January. I thought we gave up thinking about it back around March, didn't we? I don't know what causes this. I figured out it doesn't always happen on the same day, and it's not always at your place that we end up. What more do you want from me?"

"To solve this. Since when do you give up on things anyway? This can't keep happening. It's strange enough that it does, but now I'm actually getting used to it. Which is even stranger. So we have to figure out how to stop it. Maybe it's something we're doing the night before that causes it. We've never analyzed it from that angle. What were you doing last night?"

"Uh...reading."

"The whole night?!" She had an amused laugh in her voice. 

"Yes, the whole night. What exhilarating plans did you have, Ms. O'Connell?"

She'd stayed in reading, too, but wasn't about to admit that to him. "I don't have to share every detail of my nights with you. It's private."

"What's that mean, private? You not alone last night, or something?"

She saw worry flash in his eyes and decided to stoke his jealousy a little. "Let's just say I had a nice evening."

"Isn't whoever he was alone at your place now, wondering where you are? He's probably just grateful for the silence. Who would you have slept with, anyway?" He tried to still sound jocular, but he knew he was cursed with eyes that betrayed his every emotion.

"Not your business, Fleischman." She poked him teasingly in his chest, jokingly emphasizing her point.

He caught her finger, mid-poke. "It is a little bit. I mean, since I'm on that list now."

"It's only your business if you're the current one on the list. Not a prior one."

"I'm as current as things get." His thumb stroked her finger, their hands still joined.

"Not you're not. Remember Mike?"

He knew his eyes definitely looked pained this time. "You didn't really ever...with him, did you?"

Her face didn't change, still amused and teasing, the fingertips not wrapped up in his tickled his chest. God, she had pretty eyes, his mind unhelpfully supplied. "Do you think we did?"

"Well...I mean, the man wouldn't walk outside some days. It's just hard to believe he was willing to roll the dice on..."

She pulled her hand abruptly away from his, her eyes narrowing. "Roll the dice on...what exactly? Are you implying I'm somehow..."

He backpedaled fast, putting his hand up defensively. "I just meant close contact - of any kind, with anyone - was something that he avoided. And you can't...do that without having close contact."

"No, you can't." She smiled again with a look he couldn't decipher; she could be infuriatingly unreadable sometimes.

"So...did you?"

He caught something thay looked a lot like guilt flash in her eyes before she spoke, her tone of voice suddenly conciliatory, apologetic. "Well, yeah, Fleischman. We dated a long while. It was serious, you know..." Her head tilted a little to the side, a rare defensive tell of hers. "Sort of. So, yeah, we did."

"Oh." His voice was soft and all hint of amusement had left his face. "Serious, huh? So did you love him?"

Her long and hesitating pause gave her away. "That's also private."

His eyes brightened a litte again. "So you didn't. But you slept with him anyway..."

"So what if I did? Fleischman, why are you clutching at your pearls over this? Not to further taint your view of my chastity, but I've slept with quite a few guys. And not many that I loved. Surely you've slept with women you didn't love."

His face colored a little, which she picked up on immediately. 

"What?"

"What what?"

"You're blushing." She grinned at him gleefully. "So now you have to tell me. Who was she?" 

He was smiling back at her gamely but self-consciously. "You're mistaking the source of my embarassment. Do the math, O'Connell. How many women do you think I've slept with?"

Her eyes looked off to one side as she considered the question. "Four."

"Uh. No. Not four. Do I get to ask to how many guys you..."

"No. Five?"

"No. I'll give you a hint: Elaine and I started going out in 7th grade. I didn't cheat on her. So, the math is pretty easy here. And so, with just that list, I've only ever...with women I love. Go ahead and laugh..."

"Laugh? I think that's very sweet, Fleischman. Especially that you've never cheated."

He gave her a bemused look. "Sweet? You think my not sleeping around on my fiancee was 'sweet'?"

"Yes. What would you call it?"

He shrugged in an exaggerated, sarcastic way. "Definitional? A given? Pretty near the bare minimum I would owe someone I love? I mean, O'Connell..." He paused, rolling his eyes good naturedly while trying to be careful of his wording. "'Sweet' is flowers for no reason. Surprising someone with lunch. A thoughtful gesture. Something well beyond just being a decently moral human being. What, do you cheat on people?"

She looked defensive. "I'm female. We're not wired that way. And of course I don't. I hate to break it to you, though, but you're alone amongst your gender. Most guys cheat." 

He saw it then, it wasn't just defensiveness, it was self-defense. He'd inadvertently stumbled into a minefield.

"Not good ones." He saw her start to react to the sympathy in his eyes by closing herself off, so he steered the conversation back in a lighter direction. "So, no comments about my limited sexual experience? I'd have thought you'd enjoy roundly mocking me for being 30 and only having slept with two people."

"It's really not all that surprising, now that I think about it. But you said two people - I thought you said you'd only slept with Elaine."

"Well, and you, too. Obviously."

"Right...wait, but before you said you'd only..." She looked at him a minute.

"What?" he asked, oblivious to the fact that she was replaying his words in her head - 'only with women I...'

"Nothing. I have to..." she gestured to his bathroom door. "Can I borrow a pair of boxers so I'm decent? I don't trust you not to ogle me. And can you put a shirt on?"

He smiled and sat up, walking to his dresser. "Yes, but I prefer you indecent. And it's nothing we haven't seen before." He opened a drawer and tossed her the boxers, then opened another and pulled out a shirt. "I have no appointments until 10, and Marilyn's off today, so I'm going to lay in bed and do the Times crossword before I do anything else. Of course, it's from 5 weeks ago, since I won't get today's for about a month. You're welcome to watch, though. " He tossed a pen to the foot of his bed, pulled a section of the newspaper on his dresser out, and folded it over itself so only the puzzle was showing. "I'm pretty good."

She entered his bathroom, congratulating herself on not taking the bait, while he laid face down with the paper, propping himself up on a pillow to work. He'd filled in three clues when she reemerged and laid down next to him without a word, before taking the pen from his hand, angling the puzzle to face her more squarely, and filling in two answers.

"Hey! This is mine. I'm working on this. Alone." He reached for the pen, but she held it off to the side, out of his reach.

"You weren't going to get that second one. You don't speak French."

"I know crosswords though."

"You said I could help."

"Watch, is what I actually said. But you can help. As long as you stop trying to take it over."

"Oh, and this one, too - it's obi. The sash to a kimono." She scribbled the letters into their boxes. 

"I knew that, too." He tried to sound annoyed, and made another halfhearted reach she calmly dodged before leaning back against him. He felt something move through him as she lay next him.

She bumped his shoulder with hers, grinning at him. "Oh, you did not...oh, and this one, 26 across..."

They laid on his bed together, shoulder to shoulder, her left ankle hooked over his, the puzzle perched between them, her doing the writing. He repeatedly tried and failed to force her to work methodically, ordinally, the way he did. She jumped around from clue to clue, cherry-picking the ones she liked, while he worked to preserve order by solving the ones she'd skipped past. 

They argued a little but mostly talked and laughed while they worked. Between them, they had a nearly unstoppable crossword knowledge base. If they'd stayed focused, they'd have finished it in inside fifteen minutes. As it was, it took about twice that, between their flirting, bickering, and tangential conversations. None of which he minded, though trying to pretend to. 

While they worked, she smiled at him often, leaning against him intermittently, affectionately. She touched his arm more than it seemed like she needed to, and she slid her toes along the backs of his calves, claiming they were cold. She made a comment that betrayed her bluff about the night before, and he found himself relieved to know there wasn't someone else to worry about. 

As they lay there, he began to grudgingly admit what he'd been afraid was true for awhile now - that he was in love with her. It made not one ounce of sense and it wouldn't ever work between them, of course, but he knew he felt it just the same. Against his better judgment, he wanted badly to kiss her again. Instead, he worked to be content just to be by her side.


	8. The Eighth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Three Doctors

August 27, 1993

He woke alone but in her bed, something that, despite the handful of these strange occurrences thus far, had not happened yet. He was loath to sit up quickly, afraid when he did, he'd realize his headache hadn't actually gone away.

He'd gotten a strong, sudden headache last night. Sinus headache, it seemed, brought on by the quickly vacillating temperatures and weather fronts August brought. It has gone from almost 80 degrees to 50 and then back to 75 again, all in the course of 3 days. It was bad enough he'd given up on over the counter medications, laid down, and just willed himself to sleep at 8:30. He figured he'd wake up at 5, having gone to sleep so early, but the sun's rays were at a fairly steep angle already, filtering through Maggie's drapes. Maggie, who was nowhere to be found.

He sat up slowly, gingerly, and was relieved to feel no discomfort. Not even that headache-hangover he'd get sometimes, after a particularly pernicious episode. He looked around her room, trying to piece together this anomaly within the greater string of anomalies. Maybe she was waking right now, alone at his place? 

He stood up, rising from her bed and walking to her bathroom. Headache or no, he really had to pee. He peeked inside, as if somehow, she might be hiding in there. She wasn't, so he slipped inside to do his morning business, leaving the door open behind him out of tiredness and habit. He should have realized that doing so would ensure that, not only was she here, but she was about to appear. He only heard her footsteps and voice when they were less than a few feet away and closing in on him.

"...you in here? I was wondering when you'd finally...oh my God, Fleischman! You left the door open, and you're..."

It slammed shut with more force than was necessary as he finished, flushed, and washed his hands.

He emerged to find her, fully dressed and cross-looking, perched on the corner of her bed. She was growing her hair out, he'd finally started to notice. She looked angelic with longer hair, a jarring contrast to her often angry disposition, at least with him. As with right now, for example...

"You're just gonna leave the door open like that?"

"I didn't know you were here."

"Didn't know I was...Fleischman! This is my house! Where else would I be?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe at my place."

"Your place? Why would I be there?"

"For whatever the hell reason it is that I am here. I thought we'd switched. I don't know, O'Connell. It made sense in my hazy half-awake state. As much sense as the rest of this does." He sat down next to her, trying to look apologetic instead of amused. "Sorry about the door. I really did think I was alone."

Her eyes softened, apparently accepting his apology. "Half-awake? It's almost 9:00, you know?"

"Really? I slept forever, then."

"No kidding. You get drunk last night or something?" She had teasing eyes and was smiling again.

"Alone in my cabin? No. That's a really wretched existence you have pictured for me out there. No, I got a bad headache and went to bed early."

"Oh, you did?" She reached up and gingerly touched his cheek. She always made such unflinching eye contact with him. He felt self-conscious, knowing how bad his eyes were about hiding his feelings. And he felt a strong flash of affection for her hit him with her gentle touch.

"Yeah, I'm okay, though. Happens sometimes with the weather here..." He looked away from her, pretending to look around her room, trying to shake his overwhelming desire to kiss her. "Hey, do you need to get out of here? I'm sorry for keeping you so late..."

"Nah, it's Friday. I've got nothing today. I got bored and made us breakfast, actually. You like eggs benedict?"

"Really?! I mean, yeah I do. A lot. It's complicated to make, though. Did you make actual hollandaise sauce and everything? Do you really know how to do that?"

"Mmmhmmm. No bacon though. But English muffins and everything. Come on out. I'll show ya." She stood and walked to her kitchen, shouting back in his direction as she went. "Oh and I called Marilyn and told her you'd be in late. She said you don't have patients until 1."

"You called Marilyn?!"

"Yes. I figured she'd get worried since it was well past 8:30. She sounds glad to be alone. I would be, too, if I had to work with you all day every day..."

"You called her on the phone, and told her I would be late? Because I was still asleep? In your bed?" He plunked down at her kitchen table, watching her as she moved through her kitchen. "Well, she's definitely going to think we're sleeping together now. If she didn't already, with you dropping me off barefoot in my sweats all those times before."

"I told you, she knows I wouldn't sleep with you."

"And I told you, she knows you would. Because she knows you did." He saw her grin as she turned away from him to grab silverware from the drawer. He noticed she'd given him the rare last word on that topic, grabbed a piece of toast from the plate on the table, and started buttering it. "Everyone does." 

Maggie looked nonplussed as she set a glass of orange juice in front of him and returned to the kitchen. "I was doing some reading while I was waiting for you to finally wake up. I figured out why we'll never work."

He choked a little on his first bite of toast before washing it down with juice.

"What? Why don't we work at what? Work like...work-work? As in, in a relationship?"

"Right. Why we'll never end up together."

"Um..." He wasn't sure whether to be happy she'd been entertaining the thought or frustrated she'd unilaterally come to that conclusion already. "I didn't realize you were...fact-finding on that topic. Okay, why not? What's wrong with us?"

"You're earth. And I'm air."

He stared at her blankly and waited a few seconds for her to clarify her statement. When nothing came, he sought it, trying and failing not to sound irritated. "The hell are you talking about?"

She finished plating their food and brought it to the kitchen table. "Libra and Capricorn. Air sign and earth sign. I looked it up. It's a wonder we've never stabbed each other, let alone that we can be friends. Or whatever we are."

"I'm sorry - do you mean...are you talking about astrological star signs?"

"Yeah."

"And you're..."

"A Libra."

"Which makes me..."

"A Capricorn."

"Right." He lifted a forkful of what he had to admit was fantastic-looking poached egg smothered in Hollandaise sauce to his mouth. "So that means?" He put the bite in his mouth. 

"Well, we just don't get along. On a very basic level. It's destiny, you know, because..."

"Oh my God, O'Connell. This is incredible. You made this?"

"Yeah." She had a knowing smirk. "Good?"

"Incredible. Good isn't sufficient enough a word to describe this." He cut another bite with his fork and ate another mouthful. Through it, he resumed their other discussion. "It's so good, I'm willing to hear you out on this astrology nonsense."

"It's not nonsense. There's science behind it." He would have had to bite his tongue were his mouth not full. As it was, his silence allowed her to continue. "So you know about how Capricorns are, right?"

He swallowed and finally chimed in sarcastically. "I'm a font of knowledge on the topic. It's what we covered the first full week of med school. But I'll let you remind me."

She rolled her eyes but looked unconcerned with his reluctance. "They're what could be charitably called 'reticent'. What I'd call antisocial. And melancholy. Anal retentive planners and rule followers. You derive your self-esteem from work and career and whether others respect you or not. You're driven, to a fault - your life is one slow slog to the top, which you've had mapped out since you were young. You put success above everything, even relationships. Oh and you live to be right."

"Flattering. Thanks for the assessment." His voice was sullen and he had another forkful of eggs, casting his eyes down to his plate.

"Is any of it wrong?"

"This is what happens when you know when my birthday is, huh? And apparently I dwell in the single star sign which expresses only bad traits?"

"Well, no. Capricorns have their good points, too."

"Like?"

"Okay. You're a pragmatist, a problem solver, a scientist. Very smart. Well-spoken. Neat. Organized. Always achieve the goals you set for yourself. Great sense of humor. Family-oriented. Honest and loyal and steadfast and one of those 'still waters run deep' types. All admirable traits..." She was looking at him with that fond look in her eyes. "...I suppose. You're not very adventurous though."

"I see. And you? I assume you're the better one in this scenario."

"Well, Libras are much more spontaneous. And we like to be around people. We're social. Relationships are of the utmost importance to us. We're easygoing. Independent, but romantic. Justice seekers. Affectionate. Gregarious. Open-minded. Clever. Mechanically inclined. Cooperative. Fun. Devoted friends. Great cooks."

"I'll give you that last one. This was amazing, by the way. Really - I had no idea you could cook like this."

"It's just eggs," she rolled her eyes shyly. 

"Poached eggs. In an exceptionally difficult sauce to make... Really, thank you for breakfast. At least let me clean up, okay?" Maggie shrugged in silent response as she finished her last bite, so he resumed their broader discussion as a conciliation. "So your point is you believe this proves you have no flaws? I can see why you're drawn to this, as a philosophy."

"Well, no. Libras at their worst can be seen as flighty. Indecisive. Needy. High maintenance. Opinionated. Retributive. Unforgiving."

Joel smirked, laughing. "You? Never." She glared at him. "Sorry. Go on."

"Libras hate being single and can be in danger of entering relationships just so they don't have to be alone." He made a knowing face at her. "Shut up. They sometimes put on appearances for others. And consequently, they can seem duplicitous and often end up surrounded by avoidable conflict of their own making."

"That actually sounds accurate...and familiar. So we're different. Fine. So what?"

"We're not just different. Fleischman, we're as different as different gets. Astrologically speaking."

"Right. Astrologically speaking." He rolled his eyes again. "That's the air and dirt thing you're so aerated about, then? This thing which dooms us? Not that there is an 'us' but..."

"Air and *earth*. And yes. That's why there is not and will never be an 'us'. See, where your sign is grounded and loves stability and sameness, mine seeks change and hates routine. The very elements that rule us conflict at a basic level."

"And that's bad? What happened to opposties attracting?"

"Bad? They're polar opposites. I mean, not to mention that you're ruled by Saturn and I'm ruled by Venus. And the fact that these are both cardinal signs... That's why we're so headstrong, both of us."

She looked at him expectantly, as if she expected him to have an iterable opinion on this topic. It was silent several seconds. "O'Connell. You know I don't believe in any of this, right? And here you are putting stock in it like it's a basic tenet of life."

"It is. You don't believe in astrology?"

He gave her an exasperated look. "Did you ever honestly think that I would? I mean, what did you say just two minutes ago? Ruled by science? Grounded? Pragmatic? That's me. So taking into serious consideration which stars were overheard when I was born can't possibly be something you think I'd do. Where did you even glean all of this from? Tell me you don't have books about this." She blushed and moved quickly to explain herself.

"Not books I bought. Shelly was reading one and told me I just had to. 'The Romantic Astrologer'. It's actually quite insightful."

"I can tell you think so."

"It is. I read about Rick and I, and it was all completely accurate. Same with me and Bruce. And Glen."

"How'd ol' Mikey fare?"

Maggie glared back at him. "I didn't look him up, actually. But everything else I did read was uncanny. And if you wouldn't insist on disregarding the eerily accurate descriptions I just gave you it had about each of us individually, you'd agree. And, it says that together we argue constantly...sound familiar?

"Everyone argues if they spend enough time together..."

"Well, this kind of arguing is a competitive thing for both of us. Like a sport. Something we choose to do. Not only are we both convinced of our own inherent superiority, but we're egotistical and stubborn. We both mask what we really think so effectively, it's next to impossible to for us to decipher what the other is thinking. You think I'm vapid, and I think you're too serious. You work too hard, and you think I'm disorganized and lackadaisical."

"So the upshot is that we have absolutely nothing in common, then? And you needed a book about pseudo-science to tell you this?"

"Well, not nothing in common...it says we both are excellent talkers. Peacemakers, but driven by very different reasons for doing so. And not with regard to each other, obviously. We're both smart. Very polite. Similar values - rule followers, people pleasers and parent pleasers. Uncompromising...and..." She paused as if trying to recall the other points the book had made.

"...and? I mean, so far, to say I'm unconvinced by all of this would be an incredible understatement. You could be describing any two people."

"Really? A lot of that is frighteningly accurate."

"How do I know you're not just cherry picking the things that make your case? Where is this book anyway?"

"Hold on." She rose and left the table, and he cleared their breakfast plates. He washed them in her sink as she rummaged through and then reemerged from her bedroom before settling herself on the couch with the book. He watched her flipping through the pages while he put the clean, still-wet plates onto her drying rack.

"Does that book have sparkles on its cover?" He failed to keep from laughing. "Very authoritative, O'Connell. Is it a children's book?"

"No. And, see? You're just proving it's right. That's you being a Capricorn - judging books by their covers. Literally, in this case."

"Hey, if the glitter fits...Fine. So it's upon this half-baked theory that I can tell my mother to send back the wedding announcements, then? We have nothing in common?"

"Don't be an idiot. And your mom has no idea I exist."

"You don't know what my mom knows about you," he said quietly, before drying his hands and joining her on the couch, leaning over to see the page she was on. "Fine. What do these graphics represent?"

"Oh? Now you're interested in my sparkly book, are you?"

"It has empirical data presented in graphs and charts. I'm curious to see how they've yoked this nonsense to statistics."

"They're compatibility meters. See," she said, gesturing across the pages open in front of them, "We don't work - low scores, pretty much across the board."

"That one's high. What's that?"

"Oh. Uh. Physicality. Sex."

"Really? Astrology purports to govern that, too, huh? What's it say?"

"You can read it as well as I can."

"Not without my glasses I can't. Which are at my house. You're telling me you read all about this earlier with near-complete recall, but you skipped that one paragraph? Do Libras as a group suffer from selective memory loss? Or is that just you?"

She glared sideways at him. "Fine. Let's see...'The very embodiment of 'opposites attract,' this pairing is a sexual powerhouse. They click from the moment they lay eyes on each other with an explosive, obsessive, and all-consuming attraction that never dims. Sex for the Capricorn-Libra couple is as intoxicating and addictive as heroin. Perfectionist Capricorn commits fully to...'" Maggie paused, feeling awkward, and trailing off to read to herself. "Basically, the thinking is that because you fall so hard for people and by nature try to do things perfectly...and because I'm passionate and, well, sexual by nature...and because we are such total opposites, when we do come together, we are the perfect compliment to one another. I mean, not we. These two star signs."

"The ones *we* are..." Something crackled in the air between them.

"Yeah."

"Huh. Didn't I say opposites attract before? But you're saying it's just in bed that we're like that?"

"Yeah. I mean, we're a disaster otherwise. See?" She gestured vaguely across the pages of the book still perched on her knees.

He leaned closer and reached across her to point at the text under one of the colorful meters that were scattered across the page. "This part says we do fine if we know each other well and just work on not trying to piss each other off."

"If we don't give into our worst instincts, yeah. But you and I always do. So we don't work. Anyway, I thought you said this was all nonsense. And that you can't see to read it anyway." She snapped the book closed, as he slipped his hand out just before his fingers got clipped. His hand landed on her leg.

"It is nonsense. But you went and got the book out to show it to me. So I'm reading it. Or was trying to." His fingers curled where they laid against her thigh. She turned her face towards him and had that look in her eyes. His eyes were dark and fixed on hers as he continued softly. "I will admit that 'intoxicating' hits it pretty close. With us."

"And addictive..." The corners of her mouth turned up and her gaze briefly slipped to his lips.

"...consuming..." He swallowed hard. 

"...explosive..." She was breathing harder.

He leaned in and kissed her. Within seconds, their arms were around each other. She turned the rest of the way toward him, her knees straddling his hips while she pushed him back against the couch. She ran her left hand through his hair and slipped the other under the hem at the back of his shirt, sliding her palm up his back. His left hand moved between them to tug against the line of buttons that began at her neckline, fumbling open the top closure and moving down to work on the next. His right hand slid up her side to her shoulder, settling at the nape of her neck, desperately pulling her closer to him. 

A soft knock at her door went unnoticed at first, but a second, more insistent one a half minute later penetrated the haze that had enveloped them both. He pulled back quickly from the kiss. "Is someone at your door?"

She looked at him in shock for a second before pushing herself up and off of him, and the couch, staggering a little as she tried to walk to her front door. She reached forward to open it as whoever was outside knocked a third time.

"Wait! O'Connell!"

"Fleischman! What?" Her hair was mussed and her lips and chin were pink. And she still had the look in her eyes. Whoever she opened the door to would be easily able to tell what she'd been up to. Then there were her buttons...

"Your, uh, shirt. It's half unbuttoned." She looked scornful and buttoned the three buttons he'd managed to work open before reaching again for the door handle, running her hand through her hair with her opposite hand as she did. When it opened, Joel heard a familiar voice from Maggie's porch.

"Oh good, you are here. I was about to give up. I hope I'm not interrupting anything or bothering you."

"Oh, it's no bother. Promise. Is everything all right?" He noticed she didn't deny there'd been a interruption.

"Oh, yes, dear. It's just my lock."

"What? Your lock?"

"Yes. On the store. It's seized up. Frozen. Can't turn the key at all. Damn thing. Ed and I both tried it, and it won't move. I know you aren't *my* landlord, but you are *a* landlord, and as Maurice is in Seattle this week, I thought you might be willing to help me..."

"Sure, Ruth Anne. Let me get my shoes and we'll go." Her eyes darted sideways to Joel and then back to Ruth Anne. "Would you like to come in?"

"Oh, no, dear. My boots are a muddy mess. I'll do just fine here on your porch."

"Okay. I'll hurry." Joel could hear Maggie's relief, and was glad himself not to be on the verge of an awkward meeting. Ruth Anne had warmed to him, but he wasn't sure he was ready to greet her in his night clothes, early on a weekday morning on Maggie's couch.

"No rush," Ruth Anne reassured Maggie placidly. "I'm sorry to be a bother."

Maggie turned, threw Joel a bewildered look, and walked back towards her bedroom. 

Ruth Anne's voice he had known even without the context clues, and he wondered whether he ought to try to hide but decided that would ultimately draw more attention to himself than sitting stock still and hoping she'd leave soon.

"So *that's* going on, is it, Joel?" Came the sharp but quiet voice of the older woman, from the other side of the coat rack that stood between them.

"Excuse me?"

"I suppose it was just a matter of time for this to start up between the two of you."

"Oh...oh, no, I'm not...we're not..." He started to get up to come to the door to deflect on behalf of both he and Maggie. He paused, though, wondering how he'd even begin to explain this. 'We just wake up together sometimes. You familiar with Einstein-Rosen bridges? Wormholes? That's sort of what happens. We think. We're not having sex though. Even though we did that one afternoon. A lot. And even though it felt like we about to before you showed up just now.' Yeah, that wouldn't quite work.

"Just stay seated where you are and keep your voice down. She thinks I don't know you're here, and I'm going to pretend I didn't notice you. She didn't want me to see you, so I'll respect that. I'd advise you do the same. Maggie is complicated and exceedingly private, and she'll be a lot more comfortable if this stays your secret until she's ready to tell people. Which I hope you know. But I'm worried you don't. As for me - well, *I'm* not shy about expressing my feelings. Or my reservations. I like you quite a bit, Joel, and I know how you feel about her. But don't let her fall any more in love with you if you aren't going to stay. She's had too much heartache with men, only to have you lead her on and lose you, too, in the end."

'More in love?' he thought. "Ruth Anne, what..."

"Okay," Maggie's voice rang out as she neared the living room. "Let me just grab my lock kit and we'll go."

She gave Joel a brief and apologetic glance. 

"Sure. And thank you again, dear. I can drive you into town and save you the gas, too. I'll wait for you in my truck. I feel like I'm tracking mud all over your porch."

"Oh, okay!" Maggie said brightly, waving and watching Ruth Anne from her front threshold for several seconds before leaning back to look at Joel. "My keys are on the coffee table," she whispered to him hurriedly. "Wait 2 minutes until we've gone and then you can take my truck to your place to get dressed. Just leave it parked at your place. We can figure out how to swap back later. Okay? Please? Sorry to leave so quickly but..."

He wanted to talk to her, to define and classify what had just happened between them, agree on what would come next, and see if he could make sense of what Ruth Anne had just implied. But Maggie's eyes were pleading, and she looked so worried and dissettled that he couldn't bear to make it worse. Instead, he just forced himself to smile back at her. "It's okay. I didn't know you could pick locks, too. You're a regular tour de force, you know that?"

Her face relaxed into a smile, relieved and grateful. "You better believe it. See you, Fleischman."

When he heard the truck pull away, he leaned down and picked the book up from where it had fallen on the floor before, made himself comfortable on her couch, and flipped back to the pages where they'd been looking a few minutes before...


	9. The Ninth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Three Doctors

September 27, 1993

It just felt early. Joel woke, shut off his alarm before it sounded, and stretched his legs out in bed. He tried to reason himself into going for the run he'd planned to before work. It was Monday and if he didn't start the week off with a run, it'd be that much harder to talk himself into it as the week went on. It felt early, though. He opened one eye to check his bedside clock and confirmed it wasn't any earlier than usual. The days just got shorter earlier this far north. And it was almost October - just four more days. And two more until Maggie's birthday. 

He knew he needed to do something this year to mark the occasion, and he was running out of time to figure out what that should be. They'd had a tense few weeks, and he owed her a nice gesture. He was worried she was still angry with him about all the things he'd said and done while he was sick. She said she wasn't, and he'd given her a real, heartfelt, genuine apology - a rarity for him and something she seemed to gratefully accept. Even still, though, he felt worried - both that she thought he'd meant what he'd said and that she'd seen through to why he'd said it. And then there'd been their near- _incident_ on her couch the last morning they'd woken up together. The one she hadn't mentioned since.

They'd come so close that morning - not just to sex (although he'd have given his right arm to have seen that through). He'd seen something in her eyes - the giddy realization that they were inevitable. And she seemed finally ready to accept that inevitability. And yet somehow Ruth Anne's knock had sobered her to the point of reverting back to her belief that they wouldn't work as a couple. Based on fucking astrology, of all irrational things. And a biased reading of it, at that.

So when he got sick and she showed up to help with little more than nostrum and folklore, he'd torn into her. Everyone else in town had done the same thing she had, of course, but his ire was reserved for Maggie. He'd entirely lost patience with her willingness to ignore reality and reason and so wholeheartedly embrace superstition, particularly if it was what had stopped anything from moving forward with them. 

He sat up to get out of bed before he lost momentum, determined still to go for a run, reaching under his bed for the socks and running shoes he'd set out last night to make going easier. 

He'd been wrong about any fear that they'd plateaued, he realized as soon as she showed up to check on him with a packed lunch. He felt terrible when he saw how she'd chosen to tamp her feelings down and carry on as if he hadn't said what he had. When he apologized later, he'd taken her hands in his to make sure she believed him. Her doting care of him and the way she looked at him made plain what she felt for him. Something had changed between them - Ruth Anne had been right. He'd been so worried his feelings were one-sided. Now he figured she'd eventually realize about herself what he already had and do something to derail their progress so she wouldn't have to come to terms with those feelings.

He shook off his internal contemplation, sat up from tying his shoes, and tried to gather together the willpower to stand.

He felt her touch a millisecond before he heard her voice, not that it helped him avoid jumping about a foot in response. "Going somewhere?"

"Jesus, O'Connell! You can't let me know you're here in a slightly more conspicuous way?"

"I didn't even hear your alarm. Why are you up and out of bed so early? On a Monday, no less."

"I'm going for a run before work." She laughed enough in response that he turned around to glare at her. "Why is that so amusing to you?"

"You don't run."

"Yes I do. Quite a bit, actually." He hadn't meant it to sound quite so haughty but for once she was completely wrong and he was objectively and verifiably right, so he had a hard time containing his elation. "Why is that so hard to believe?"

"Because you've never bragged about it. And you brag about just about everything you do that you think is impressive. Since when do you run? And where do go? And how far? And how often?"

"I do not brag about everything. And I've run my whole life, I run around the trail along the lake here, about 4 miles, a couple times a week."

"You do so brag about things. Just not about this, I guess." She was sitting half up, leaning on her arm, looking amused. He realized how used to the sight of her laying in his bed he'd become...and how strange that was. "Okay. So. Why running?"

He hadn't expected that question. "Um, I don't know. For the same reasons anyone does it, I guess - exercise, cardiovascular improvement, self-discipline, habit - you can pick your reason, really."

"I get to pick the reason? For you? Oh let's see... I'm guessing some combination of excess nervous energy, competitiveness, and...vanity. Probably."

"Vanity? How am I vain? How is running vain?"

"I've seen this story play out before. You're a type A achievement junkie and a skinny guy. I'm guessing you started med school, you got understandably stressed out, you gained a few pounds, and you forced yourself to start running for control. I've seen it happen before. Boyfriend in law school did this, too."

"Thank you for your armchair psychoanalysis, but I actually lost weight in med school. And I've run since way back when I was 13. I ran track all through high school. And in college. And for your information, I..." He paused, as his mind finally registered what she'd said. He turned his legs the rest of the way around to sit so he could face her fully. "Law school?" He asked, just as she asked, "You ran track?"

He waited to see if she'd answer first, but several seconds of silence was too much to be borne. "Yes. I was substate champion in the 5,000 meters my senior year. I still hold my high school's record. And I was only 16 at the time. Because I skipped two grades in high school. Which is both noteworthy and something I know I've never told you, despite your sincerely held but entirely unfounded belief about my boastful nature. I am a runner. Then and now. Law school?"

"Two grades? Really? Which two?" He wanted full credit for having gotten that to register with her, but he wasn't about to fall prey to her skillful topic avoidance.

"Sophomore and junior years. Was this a boyfriend you had who was *in* law school?"

"You went from a freshman to a senior?"

"Or was this a guy you dated when you...I mean, you didn't go to law school... Did you?"

"Two semesters at Michigan. Yeah." Her face had clouded over a little.

"Really?! How didn't I know this already?"

"No one knows this about me. Well, maybe Ruth Anne. The whole thing was my dad's idea. I hated it. I quit after a year to follow my boyfriend out here."

"The runner?"

"Yeah. The writer. Bruce. He hated law school, too. At least he finished, though." Defensiveness had replaced completely the mocking in her tone of voice.

"Michigan, huh? That's a good school."

"Yeah, well. Not for me, it wasn't."

He didn't know what to say in response. This was all a revelation, but clearly one she didn't want to talk about.

"Ruth Anne knows?"

"Yes. But that doesn't give you license to go discuss this with her behind my back." Her face changed from angry to a little more permissive and a little less guarded. "Oh okay...I always wanted to be a lawyer, even when I was little. A justice-seeking thing, I guess. My dad thought it was because I loved arguing so much."

Joel smiled at her and she relaxed a little more, continuing. "I knew, though, even when I started applying that I didn't actually want to go through with it. But I really didn't want to tell my parents that - my dad was so excited this was my next step. And then I got into Michigan. Good LSAT score, I guess. Or maybe he pulled some strings with friends. I don't know. Either way, I was really stuck. I hated it almost immediately. Law school's the worst place on earth if you are pursuing justice, fairness. Bunch of cutthroat type-As who relish fighting, all trying to undermine and outdo each other. You'd be well-suited to that environment, come to think of it. I wasn't. Bruce was a 3L who hated it, too - just wanted to write books. So when he moved out here after he graduated, I quit and went with him. And before you say a word, it's not like I flunked out or anything. I ended the year 17th in my class of two hundred some, actually. Not 54th."

"You've really hung onto that little detail, haven't you?"

She smiled a little at him. "Hey, anything to take you down a peg..."

"O'Connell...what I said the other day, I never meant that I think you..."

"I know. You apologized already. Several times."

"And you... you know I think you're very...I mean, I've watched you rebuild an engine and..."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't start into this 'you're smart in your own way' thing. I don't need validation. Especially from you." 

"O'Connell, I'm not trying to do anything. I just..."

"I know. It's not my favorite topic. Any of this." She looked at him for a moment. "You wanna skip running today?"

Something about the look in her eyes made his heart rate jump. "Skip it to...do what exactly?" He hoped he didn't look or sound as eager as he felt.

"Oh, I don't know. You got another crossword puzzle we could do?" Damn, he thought. He'd misread her again - she was just deflecting from the law school conversation. If she wanted to change the subject that abruptly and completely, she'd probably just rather he leave for a bit, too.

He stood up and walked to his dresser, grabbing his Times and tossing it to her with a pen. "Here. Running will take me about 45 minutes. We'll race. See how far you can get before I get back."

She looked disappointed a split second before sitting the rest of the way up in his bed and folding the paper over. She clicked the pen twice. "Better get going then." 

When he got back forty minutes later, his bed was neatly made, the crossword sitting on top. Maggie was long gone, and he figured she'd walked home again. He picked up the paper - every blank in the puzzle was filled in, with 'I win' written above it. He smiled to himself before he saw the note she'd scrawled below the puzzle, too - _23 minutes. Wish you'd realized what I meant, though - I didn't plan on letting us getting very far with the crossword... Maybe next time, huh?_


	10. The Tenth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between A River Doesn't Run Through It and Birds of a Feather

October 27, 1993

They'd had dinner together last night - she'd cooked him coq au vin, a supremely cocky culinary move that she not only played down but pulled off. She was a great cook, he was realizing, and their evenings together were actually pretty pleasant. Relaxed. Flirtatious. Fun. Friendly. Well. No. 'Friends' was still not the word for what they were. The sexual tension between them was palpable. It was good they were both naturally talkative people and prone to bickering, because any lull in their conversation felt loaded.

He'd left reluctantly at midnight. He had the strong feeling she wanted him to stay but didn't want to be the one to say something. He wanted her badly. It had been months now since their...dalliance. Dalliances. Even all this time later, it lurked in his subconscious, not helped by the fact that apparently on any given morning, he might wake up next to her. More and more often, he found himself thinking, "What would be the harm if you and she..." They'd had so many close calls with each other, it would just take one without interruption to fundamentally change things between them. Again. And their contact so often revolved around beds...

As if his thoughts had been given life, he heard her next to him. His first thought was to be glad it was his turn to be the invaded again instead of the invader. His second was to realize what he'd heard.

It sounded like a sigh...but not. He knew exactly what that sound was because he'd heard it before. And then he heard it again. He rolled over quickly, hurrying to wake her before things got any more awkward for them.

"O'Connell! Hey. Wake up." Her eyes opened and, though sleepy, already had that glint in them. "You're... uh, talking. In your sleep. Oh, and in my room. Again."

Rather than seem embarrassed, her smile looked suddenly mischievous. "I was talking?"

"Uh, yeah."

"What did I say?" Her gaze and tone were suggestive and teasing, which had an immediate effect on him, causing him to stumble over his words.

"I - I don't know."

Her eyes looked predatory now, and he felt a little terrified of what was coming next. "Typical. You're not a very good listener, Fleischman." She moved closer to him, hooking her knee behind his. "It's cold in here today."

He wanted to point out that was her fault, for having not caulked his window where it had shifted in its frame over the winter. He'd told her - twice - that there was an at least 2 inch gap now, through which the cold morning air flowed freely into his bedroom. Somehow it was quite clear to him that saying anything like that would stop whatever was going on right now. So he went with, "Sorry."

She smiled more - still not a friendly smile, but an unsettlingly amatory one. "You know I don't believe that you didn't hear me say anything interesting before you woke me up..."

He felt his face flush, and his mouth went dry, hearing how she said that last word. "You weren't talking, per se. It was more like a sigh."

"A sigh?"

"Well..."

"You know...last time this happened, I told myself there had to be a reason why." Her hand landed gently on his side, almost making him jump. "Why the universe keeps putting us in bed together. Haven't you wondered that?"

"Uh huh. Yeah. Yes." She had slid her hand slowly up his side and was moving it now up his chest, her palm flat against him. All of it made his voice waver, which was preferable to being heard since it also dropped his IQ about a hundred points.

"So we agree. Do you ever think...well, that maybe that it's not something we're doing that causes this?" Her hand stopped where his shoulder met his neck, her fingers stretching up to tickle the hairs along the hairline of his neck. Her toes moved down the back of his calf. "But, I don't know, something that we're *not* doing? That we should be? We keep pretending that there isn't this thing between us, you know."

Shit. She wanted him too. His tongue was frozen, and he couldn't feel himself blink, his eyes riveted to hers.

"And you left early last night," she continued, her finger still tickling his neck. "I was waiting to see if you might..." 

She pushed him onto his back. "...and then I realized you have no experience with this sort of thing and that I'd have to make the first move. ...You're so quiet all of a sudden. You really don't have any thoughts on this topic..." she rolled on top of him, laying chest to chest, her knees straddling his hips. "You have no...opinions..." She leaned down putting her lips just to his ear. "...ideas..."

"I..."

"I have an idea. Would you like to hear what it is?"

He tried hard to find his voice. "Yeah..." The word was cut off by a strangled noise he made in response to her lips against the skin of his neck. "Very much."

"Mmmm. When you woke me up, I was having a nice dream." 

"Oh." She was kissing her way down his neck. This was a hell of a turn of events. 

"Yeah. About you."

He felt his breathing become unsteady. "Oh?"

"I do that a lot. Do you dream about me?"

"Well, I..."

"I'll take that as a yes. Do you know what we were doing in my dream?"

"I wouldn't want to...uh...no. I don't."

"Well..." Her hands slid up his chest, underneath his shirt, touching him gently, almost tickling him. "We were having sex. Great sex. Right here in this bed." 

"Oh?" He croaked the word out. She'd settled on his hips and was making slow, swirling motions with hers above him, all while kissing along his neck and whispering with her lips against his skin. 

She suddenly pulled the tip of her tongue slowly up the middle of his neck, stopping just below his chin. "And we didn't finish. Because you woke me up. So you know what I'd like right now?"

"I have a pretty good idea, I think."

She pulled her head up to look at him, her eyes dark and teasing still. "Do you?" Her lips were an inch from his. He could feel how warm they were through that small distance. She leaned in, just making contact, and saying, "Remember when you laughed at the idea of me making you beg? One of those first times we woke up together?"

"Not really." He tilted his chin up, trying to capture her lips with his, when she suddenly pulled just out of near proximity.

"I do. And I'm wondering, do feel like begging me now?"

"Um. You've gotta be kidding me."

"Does it feel like I'm joking?"

"You...you want me to beg you? For sex?"

"I know I'd really enjoy it."

"Me begging? I bet you would."

"Well?"

"O'Connell...okay...please. Please? I will do anything you want me to right now - just tell me."

She leaned down again, sliding both palms up his chest, pulling his shirt up with them. She pulled it off and tossed it aside, moving so she was nose to nose with him. "That was expedient. You caved too fast for it to be fun for me, though. That means you'll need to make up for it. I'm really close, though. It's not going to take very much work on your end, even if you didn't do this so well. Which you do." 

"Are you joking about this?"

She kissed along his neck up to his jawbone. "No. I want you. Right here. Right now. I know you have moral issues with casual sex. But could you make an exception for me? Just this one time? As a personal favor? It's nothing we haven't done before."

"O'Connell. I..." His heart was racing. She wasn't teasing him. Just one word, and he could have her. Which would complicate things between them, of course, but...

"If I promise you this is anything but casual, would that do anything for you?"

"It's not?"

"Well, don't you think...something's happening between us?"

"Well. Yeah. But don't you think..."

"Please, Fleischman? It's been a really long time, and I keep having this dream, and right when it gets good, I wake up. Except this time, you're here so we could actually finish. Please? See, I'm not above begging, even if you are. Or using coercion..." She kissed his upper lip gently and sat back up and took her shirt off and tossed it on top of his. "If you won't participate, I'll just make you sit there and watch."

"Watch?!?" His voice cracked and his eyes widened. She giggled at how far she'd thrown him off.

"Yeah. Strictly speaking, I don't *need* you for this. But if I'm going to be thinking about you while I do it, you might as well join me..."

And that was all the prompting he needed. He pulled her down to him and kissed her. He felt her hands move through his hair and her voice call his name...and he woke up 10 seconds later.

"Fleischman?" She met his eyes as they opened with a knowing, amused smirk. "Nice dream?"

"Huh?"

"Nothing. You were just talking in your sleep." She smiled to herself, as if she knew something he didn't. 

"What did I say?"

She smirked still, saying nothing. "What was it about?"

"I don't know. Is this one of those days? Where are we?" He sat up, pretending to look like he was trying to get his bearings. "Your place?"

She laughed out loud. "Yes. As if you didn't recognize it from all the times you've woken up here... you're a terrible actor. I take it from all of this that you don't want to tell me about your dream, then? Was I in it?"

"And you call me arrogant..."

"I only ask because I heard you say my name. A couple of times..."

"Uh...what time is it?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me about that dream..."

"O'Connell...c'mon. It's Wednesday. I have to go to work. At least tell me if I'm late." He leaned to look past her and she moved with him to stay in his line of sight, blocking him from seeing her clock. 

"Was it about sex?"

"O'Connell...why would it have been?"

"You're telling me you never think about it?"

Her eyes were smug and challenging, waiting for his next parry. All at once, he gave up on evasiveness. He was tired of coming right up to the edge of things, only to take two or three giant steps backward every time.

"You know what? I was dreaming about us. About sex, too. I think about you - about us - a lot. Especially like that. Okay?"

She was quiet a second, thrown off having lost the advantage of surprise in their conversation. Her eyes widened a little, her teasing smile fading a little. He used her pause to say the rest of what he'd been on the verge of so often. 

"I wish I knew what you wanted from me. Sometimes it seems like you want something more. And other times...I mean, I watched you frantically hide everything from Ruth Anne that morning. And I know you're thinking I do the same thing because of what I said to my mom that time on the phone, but I don't. I never got to tell you - I'm really sorry about that. I am. I know you thought it meant I'd lie to her about you, but you read that all wrong. The truth is that I didn't want to get into trying to explain why you waking up next to me didn't mean what she wants it to. Contrary to what you think, she definitely knows about you. And she always wishes I had something more interesting to say about this. And frankly, so do I."

They looked at each other silently for what felt to both of them like a long time. Finally Maggie spoke.

"6:30."

"Huh?"

"That's what time it is. You are kind of late."

"Oh. Okay. Thanks." He realized he'd once again misread her teasing for flirting, mistaking it for actual interest in something substantive. And he'd made a total ass of himself with his revealing little soliloquy as a result. "Now that I'm sufficiently embarrassed - and late - can you take me back home?"

Her eyes stayed on his until he turned to stand up. "Yeah, Fleischman. Let me get my shoes and coat on. Meet you in my truck - it's unlocked. 'Kay?"

"Yeah."

He waited for her outside, wondering if he should take everything back when she came out to try to reset things, knowing he probably shouldn't bother since Maggie's M.O. was always to simply ignore uncomfortable things as if they didn't exist. On the ride to his place, they talked logistics and business - she was picking his parents up in Anchorage on Saturday for their visit. As she pulled up to his cabin, she reached into her pocket. 

"Oh! I found your little tape recorder. Was stuck under the seat in my plane."

"I told you you had it! I really needed that when I was up there, too."

"Yeah, well, you have it now. Fascinating stuff on there, by the way." She smiled at him with a look he couldn't place.

"You listened to my personal notes? My private diagnostic notes?"

"Fleischman. It's not like your diary. It was recitations of patient medical histories. Who cares?"

"I do. The AMA does. My patients do. That's a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality, and you know it."

"I barely listened to anything. I turned it on to make sure it was yours. That's all."

He didn't believe her, mostly because her face made it plain she didn't believe herself. He knew he'd get nowhere arguing her into seeing his side of things, no matter how right he was, so he threw a halfhearted jab and snatched to machine out of her hand. "You are the nosiest person I know and have zero concept of boundaries - personal or professional. You know that?"

"Uh huh. Have a good day. I hope for Marilyn's sake you cheer up a little before you get to work."

"Yeah. Bye."

He shut the door harder than was necessary and walked towards his door as she maneuvered the truck around to drive back out. "Fleishman?"

He turned as her truck slowed to a stop, the windows down. 

"I know you're mad I listened to that, but if you re-play the tape, I think you'll see what was so interesting. See ya."

He watched her go and entered his cabin, annoyed that the unexplained phenomenon of so often waking up in someone else's bed without his keys also forced him leave his door permanently unlocked, something the New Yorker in him found abhorrent. Though that was obviously the least of his irritations today.

Maggie had twice violated his privacy, apparently with his patient notes and also by fraudulently luring him into revealing his feelings for her. He locked the door behind him as if to offset having left it unlocked all night. 

He walked into his bathroom and turned his shower on, hit play on the tape recorder, and tossed it onto his countertop. He heard his own voice as he stepped in to shower.

"...defer Vancomycin therapy until bacterium...Hey Fleischman," Maggie's voice sang out after his cut off.

She recorded _over_ his patient notes, on top of listening to them? Great, he thought, turning the shower back off abruptly and grabbing for a towel. He stood on his mat, dripping wet and angry, too irritated to shower just now, glaring at the tiny machine.

"I can just hear you, furious with me, worried you're losing your notes because I'm taping over them. So you know, I had Marilyn transcribe all of this when I found it, so before you get pissed off, I promise they aren't lost. She has all of them. That's for one. For two, I won't talk very long. But I had to tell you this. And I couldn't if I had to say it directly to you and worry how you would respond. You were gone all week. And I, uh. Well, don't ask me why, but I missed you. A lot. In fact, I called you up up there because I missed you so much." He heard her laugh to herself self consciously before she continued. "And I actually listened to these notes of yours while you were gone. A couple of times. I just had to hear your voice. Even if it was talking about some stranger's medical condition. I've never had this happen with someone before. I guess what's going on and what I'm trying to say is that I must have feelings for you. I don't know why else I'd be this way, feel this way. I'm not sure what they are, though - these feelings. Or what to do about it. But I have them all the same, and I thought it was only fair that you knew. I'm sorry about your little tape recorder. See you next time we wake up together. I really look forward to that happening anymore. Bye."


	11. The Eleventh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between Cup of Joe and First Snow

November 27, 1993

He woke up with her against him, her arm draped over his chest and the other snaked up his back, her fingers in his hair. Her breath tickled his neck as it came at slow, steady intervals. 

Though they didn't speak of it again afterwards, they'd finally told each other how they felt. Sort of. Asynchronously. Indirectly. Passively, at least one of them. Even so, they'd left things hopelessly undefined between them. The last month had been chaotic and full of distractions, but Maggie still weighed heavily on Joel's mind. He was ready to move them forward, if she was ready to move. But he had no idea what she might want from him, if anything.

He thought his parents' visit might be some kind of a catalyst, but she'd evaded his attempts to get her to have dinner with them. He realized afterwards that where he actually liked spending time with his parents, she dreaded familial interaction and all the machinations that came along with it. And assumed everyone else did, too, which is why she mistook his asking her along for fear-based plea for help rather than a desire to introduce them. Her rejections, he realized later, weren't really rejections so much as offers of encouragement. 

Either way, his mother was sorely and recurringly disappointed, blaming him, dropping frequent conversational reminders about "that sweet girl Maggie," as if guilt would prompt him to ask her again. And she was irritated at what she thought was secrecy on Joel's part, despite his insistence that nothing was going on between them. Only when he leveled with his mom, frustratedly saying if he had the power to make something happen with Maggie, he would have long ago, did she leave the topic alone. As he hugged her goodbye at the airstrip, she whispered into his ear, "These things take time, Sweetie," as he looked over his mom's shoulder at Maggie smiling at him. He worried since then whether his mother had meddled further, with Maggie as her captive audience on that three hour flight back to Anchorage.

He'd hardly seen Maggie these last few weeks, either. Between his parents being there for several days, his lack of transportation that week after Ruth Anne had let his goddamned truck blow up, and the firefighting training that eventually ensued, both of them had been busy. He knew she was irritated with him for being short with Ruth Anne. He had finally capitulated to firefighter duty to make her - and the town - less angry with him...only to have Chris suddenly take up flying. With Maggie. Often. 

He was trying not to let it bother him, but wasn't doing a very good job. Last time Joel and Maggie had gotten close to something starting between them, it seemed like she'd grabbed Mike, the nearest age-appropriate single man, as a deflection. He worked hard to convince himself that wasn't going on again, but it didn't help that Chris was frustratingly handsome competition. And tall. And had a history with Maggie, however scant. 

Surely she'd meant what she said on his tape, though, and her eyes still seemed to have that glint that seemed reserved just for him. If she did still have feelings for him, they were just wasting time not moving forward - he wanted badly to fix that. Maybe. If he could just get the courage up. He was unsure and timid around her, at least where this kind of thing was concerned - a product of both her unpredictability and his total lack of experience with women. In truth, he'd have been more comfortable with her making the first move but, in the end, he wanted more to move forward with her than to wait her out.

He had talked himself into rolling over and kissing her once she woke when he felt her breath stop against him and her body shift in bed as she rolled over. He rolled over put his arm around her.

"Hey. 'Morning, Flesichman. Your place, huh?"

It was now or never. He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck. She inhaled in surprise, so he did it again, higher up and along the side. She put her hand up to his cheek, which he took and pulled to his lips, kissing her wrist at her pulse point and then again an inch further along her inner arm. He heard her breathing change to unsteady. 

"Fleischman?"

"Yeah?" He dropped her arm and kissed her just beneath her ear.

"This is different. Not your usual course of action these mornings."

"You want me to stop?" He kissed lower, where her neck met her shoulder.

"Oh, I didn't say that..."

"Good, because I don't want to." He pulled the neckline of her shirt, hooking it over her shoulder and kissing slowly across, feeling the goosebumps rise on her exposed skin.

"What's brought this on?" He almost laughed, hearing her voice waver so much when she obviously didn't want for it to.

"You, in bed with me."

"Yeah, but how many times has this happened now? Why is it suddenly a novelty this time?"

"Because..." He kissed his way back across her shoulder to her neck and said quietly, "I want to see if this will work."

"I'm staying in bed aren't I?"

"Not work like that. I mean us."

"Oh. That that."

"Yeah," he breathed against the skin of her neck. 

"Well, we do have good sex. At least, I'm pretty sure we do. It has been awhile."

He smiled against her skin. "Yes, it has..."

She turned to lay on her back, and he put his hand on the far side of her, pushing himself up to look at her from above. She had a grin playing on her lips and a look in her eyes that he knew he couldn't misconstrue. She tucked a finger in the collar of his shirt pulled him down to her. They shared a quick, gentle kiss before pulling back to look at each other's eyes, both seeing a clear desire to do it again. They came together again, faster and with a lot more behind it. He felt her open her mouth against his and he traced her lower lip with his tongue. Her hands were in his hair and she moaned against his lips and he knew things were about to happen fast.

"Dr. Fleischman?"

Both their eyes flew open at the sound of a new voice filtering in from Joel's living room. Joel sat up quickly, the first to place the voice and remember his surroundings. 

"Ed?"

"You awake?"

"Uh. Yeah. Hold on." Joel jumped out of bed and grabbed his robe from the hook on his bathroom door, swinging it around him, and tossing Maggie a tortured look. He stood in his doorway and watched Ed shut the front door behind him. "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing. Well, actually. I cut my finger. How are you doing this morning, though?"

"God, Ed, you're bleeding." Joel flew out of his bedroom door and helped Ed to a seat at his kitchen table. His hand was wrapped in a cloth saturated with blood. 

"Hold that hand above your head and let me get my bag, okay?"

In ten minutes, Joel had cleaned and sewed up Ed's self-inflicted wound - an accident apparently sustained with a utility knife as he spent his early Sunday doing work for Maurice - and was winding a bandage of gauze over it.

"Thanks, Dr. Flesichman. You did a really good job. Looks nice. And it didn't hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would."

Joel smiled at Ed's compliment; no matter how freely Ed offered them without any background or frame of reference, he knew they were heartfelt. 

"Thanks, Ed. Keep this dry for the next week - even when you're bathing - and I want to take a look at it tomorrow and then on Friday, if you can come in. I'll probably be able to take your stitches out the Wednesday following, okay?"

"Sure, but I don't take baths. Just showers."

Joel smiled at his literal interpretation of the instructions. "Just keep it dry and out of the way of the shower spray. No water at all, really, if you can help it. And leave this bandage on. I can change it for you tomorrow."

Ed rose to leave, and Joel followed him to the door. "Tell Maurice to do his own cutting for the rest of whatever he has you working on, okay? And go easy on that hand." 

"Sure thing, Dr. Flesichman," Ed said as he trotted down Joel's front step. "Oh, and say hi to Maggie for me."

Joel stepped out his front door after a moment's pause, pulling the door closed behind him. He stepped barefoot down the steps Ed had just descended and stood on the lowest one, watching Ed walk to Maurice's truck. Of course Maurice didn't even drive him over.

"What did you say?"

"Oh. Just say hi to her when you go back in. I don't want her to think I'm being rude, but I have to get back over to Maurice's."

"O'Connell? I mean...but she's not here."

Ed smiled and nodded. "Okay. But I saw her watching you sew me up from your bedroom door."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Hey, I'll see you later, okay?"

Joel watched him drive away before reentering his cabin. He cleaned up the impromptu surgical area he'd made on his kitchen table and turned to go back to his bedroom to check on Maggie. He found her watching him from the doorway, her hand against his doorjam.

"You're a good doctor," she said softly.

He felt himself blush. "He just needed a couple of stiches."

She smiled a little to herself. "I know. I just meant how you are with people. You can be very reassuring. When you want to be. And you did that so fast, closing him up like that. It's just interesting to watch you. That's all. He okay?"

"Yeah, just a deep laceration that wasn't going to close without those sutures. He'll be fine. If Maurice lays off him and lets him rest it."

"Can you drive me? Home, that is? I don't have any shoes here this time."

Joel tried not to let disappointment register on his face. They obviously weren't going to be picking up where they left off. "Yeah. Let me get mine on and we can take off."

She moved to enter his living room as he walked to his bedroom to get socks. She filled the awkward silence between them by talking at him from the other room as he sat on his bed and put them on.

"Sorry. It's just it's Thanksgiving weekend, ya know? I have to give my mom a quick call today. She went to Bermuda with Jeffie and his new fiancee for the holiday but they flew back late last night. And I just know she's going to ask me about Dad and his wife, try to pry information out of me. As if I hear anything. I didn't even see him this year because they also took off for Thanksgiving. South Beach. Which is why I was here. Again. Maurice did a nice dinner though, didn't he? Well, anyway, I was thinking I'd better call both of them, now that they're back. And Jeffie, too. Maybe."

He reentered his living room and watched her talk nervously, flitting around the room, touching the things on his mantle, before moving to his bookshelf, picking up and examining his framed pictures.

"You ready?"

"Huh? Yeah."

"I'll pull my truck up to the stairs so you don't have to walk barefoot outside."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay."

He drove her home, Maggie still chattering nervously about her family and asking about his. He knew not to tell her Ed had seen her. He was pretty sure, even with Ed having seen her, that Ed, guileless as he was, probably suspected nothing. Joel returned home, started some coffee, and headed into his bedroom to take a shower. The note on his kitchen table caught his eye. 

They'd had yet another frustratingly close call where she initially seemed to want something to happen but seemed grateful to have been saved by an interruption. He picked up the paper and braced for a letdown.

_Sorry we were interrupted again, but maybe it's for the best. Gives us a chance to think._

He sighed out loud before he saw the rest of the note. 

_I don't want you to think this is just about sex. What I told you before isn't going away. Your mom told me you still wanted something more, too. So, whenever you're ready, and if you think we can make it work, it's your move. I'm ready. -M"_


	12. The Twelfth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between First Snow and Baby Blues

December 27, 1993

She watched Joel sleeping next to her and knew she really should wake him up. It was already 7:15 on a Monday morning, and he was going to be late. She couldn't bring herself to do it, though, he looked so peaceful. Peaceful and impossibly young. 

Something happened between them on Main Street, after that first snow - something she couldn't quite define. Something, she knew, had been at least partially colored by Joel being the only one - other than her - that liked her new decor and chair, silly as that was. Afterwards, they'd walked together, and slipped her arm in to hook around his as they walked. She knew what she felt was definable - not just feelings, but love.

She hoped he'd move to change things between them that night, but also knew he was still upset about Nedra. Ruth Anne had told her about the conversation she'd had with Joel on Nedra's porch and specifically warned Maggie to "go easy" on him today. He'd obviously been waiting outside her door a long while before announcing himself, too. When he'd driven her home after their trip to Main Street, he was distracted, in and out of listening to their conversation. She invited him in for a drink, but he declined. His eyes conveyed his heartache, and she wished she knew how to make him feel better. She just kissed his cheek and told him she was sorry.

His birthday was this coming Saturday, and his first party was planned in conjunction with the start of the new year. She was still surprised by his birthday sharing such a milestone calendar day. She'd actually double-checked it a few weeks ago, in case he was joking or teasing - first asking Marilyn and then peeking at the driver's license in his wallet after taking it out of his coat pocket at the Brick one night when he wasn't looking. She'd been excited to see it was an Alaskan driver's license, and one not set to expire for 5 more years - something she'd taken as a good sign, until she realized it was probably the simple math of the expiration schedule at work more than that he'd made a commitment to stay. He'd, of course, caught her poking through his wallet and was characteristically overirritated at the invasion of privacy he felt it represented. 

Teasing him about his secretive nature earned her not only a deflection but dismissive permission to look the rest of the way through his wallet, which she did with care on the table they shared. Most items were uninteresting - said license (with an expired New York version just behind it with a much younger Joel smiling forth from it), an MTA subway token, cash, his social security card, and two credit cards (one of which was also expired). There was only an Alaskan medical license - no New York license, expired or otherwise. More interesting was a folded note he carried, penned by mother, something he blushed furiously in response to seeing but which was handled with obvious care as he moved to replace it in his wallet. _Joel, you'll do great - I'm so proud of you! Love, Ma_ , it had said. He mumbled something about it having it in his pocket since his first day of med school. Most interesting was an unexplained phone number with a 907 area code that he moved quickly to pocket, noting irritatedly just how far outside the realm of her business the item was and which ended his patience for her prying. He put it and the rest of his wallet's contents away and watched her warily the rest of the night, as if she'd pick through it again the moment he turned his back.

She'd quickly memorized the mystery phone number, reciting it to herself in her mind periodically the rest of the night, and then calling it when she got home. It turned out to be the Juneau flight service station - FAA headquarters for south and central Alaska. She'd mentioned in passing to Marilyn that Joel carried that number in his wallet, to which she'd placidly replied, "He worries about you flying." She knew then he loved her, too, whether or not he knew it himself. She was more than ready to have things change between them.

Last time they'd woken up together, he'd obviously been ready to do something. She didn't know what though, and for the first time in her life, she wondered if maybe conversation - not sex - was what was needed to start off a relationship successfully. She'd hastily scrawled her note, not wanting to leave him wondering if they were on the same page.

She'd waited a few weeks now, hoping he'd take initiative, having left taking the next step in his hands, but nothing yet had happened. Fortuitous happenstance, then, did she view their waking up together today.

She really needed to wake him up; another five minutes had passed as she'd been running through everything in her mind. He got anxious if he couldn't get in by 8:15.

She smiled at him laying next to her now before tapping his nose playfully with one finger. "Guess what?"

"Again?" He sounded tired, sullen, and entirely unamused. She sighed, realizing he must still be upset. She put her hand on his side.

"Yeah...you feel okay?"

He opened one eye to look at her. "Yeah. Why?" His voice was suspicious. 

"You seem upset."

"Just because I'm not celebrating waking up in the middle of nowhere for the thousand somethingth day in a row, losing yet another day of what at this point is only laughably considered my youth?" His eye snapped back shut. "Yeah, I guess I'm upset, if that's the yardstick I'm being measured against."

This was one of _those_ moods. She knew he was still upset about yesterday, so she tried to change the subject. "The snow was pretty last night."

"Oh, that's right. And we're about to be plunged into nuclear winter again. Thanks for reminding me. Life wasn't quite depressing enough already."

She looked at him quietly. She'd was fairly sure this was all deflection and that what he was really upset over was Nedra, but she needed to hear him say it. She figured she'd give him the conversational opening to talk about it.

"You did what you could, you know."

His eye reopened. "What are you talking about?"

"Nedra."

"Oh." His eyes closed again. "What does she have to do with my being marooned here?" His face had tensed up in a way she didn't recognize.

"Nothing," she said, moving closer. "But I know it's what's weighing on your mind."

"Oh, do you?"

"Ruth Anne said you took it really hard."

"I'm not sure she's really qualified to diagnose my mental state. And neither are you." This was a new and strange thing to try to navigate - being there for each other - and his dismissiveness stung a little. She took a deep breath and tried to keep her tone sympathetic, not just mirror his anger with anger.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, O'Connell."

"You sure about that?"

He sighed loudly, eyes still closed and face still contorted in a way that made clear he was anything but fine. "Why don't you tell me how you think I should feel, and then I'll tell you I feel that way so you can stop asking me about this." She flinched a little inside, not used to his terseness and anger bothering her so much. She realized suddenly that rarely, if ever, had they had a fight that they weren't secretly enjoying, at least one of them. And all she felt for him right now was empathy.

"I was just trying to help."

"Well, thanks, but no thanks. You know, if I were in an actual city instead of this hellhole I'm stuck in, there'd have been resources, tests I could have done, something to help me see it. If I had colleagues I could ask. Research I could tap into. Something. But I have nothing." 

That did it. Her patience and sympathy expired, and she glared at him, ready to rip into him for leveraging Nedra's death into yet another angrily myopic rant about his situation. She opened her mouth to tell him what a closed-minded and selfish asshole he was, just as he finished the rest of his thought, his voice wavering a little as he did. 

"And nothing you say is going to change the fact that I fucked up and missed something, okay? That this woman died because I didn't do a good enough job of figuring out what was killing her."

She stayed silent next to him, watching his face while he clearly tried to tamp something down inside, his jaw visibly clenching, eyes still closed. She'd rarely seen him reproachful of himself, and never about his work. Ruth Anne had said he seemed uncharacteristically upset and said something about having never lost a patient, something that was surprising in its obviousness. Maggie had initially assumed his mentioning that was more to do with pride and some kind of scorecarding, though. Realization started to dawn on her - he was a perfectionist. And, despite his bluster, he cared about his patients. He blamed himself for her death.

"Fleischman, you know you..."

He opened his eyes before repeating, "Nothing you say," speaking slowly, and emphasizing each word. His eyes were weary and disconsolate. She'd never seen him like this. Not when Elaine ended things. Not when his uncle passed away. He held her gaze a moment longer before he closed his eyes again and exhaled a long breath.

She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, wishing she knew him better, well enough to know how to help him through this. She lingered close to him a moment and thought about pulling back. She decided she'd get out of bed and give him privacy until he was ready to be around someone again. Then, she felt his arm around her. He pulled her close and put his forehead against her shoulder. She put one arm around him and the other in his hair, ruffling it slowly, and kissed the top of his head again. She wanted badly to speak, to explain to him until he believed her about why it absolutely wasn't his fault. She willed herself to say silent, though - she wanted to talk but he obviously needed silence. So she just held him close, hoping she was helping.

They lay together like that for a few minutes before she felt him pull back, and she opened her eyes to assess his, surprised to find all trace of what she'd seen before gone. 

"You have time for breakfast at the Brick? You have to take me home first to get dressed, but I'll treat." He smiled at her, his smile a little more muted than most mornings. She wanted to ask if he was really okay. There was no way he was suddenly all better, and tamping whatever he was going through down wasn't healthy.

"Fleischman..." she asked suspiciously before pausing as a wary look filtered back through his eyes. Healthy or not, this was how he was going to process this. She decided to take his cue and leave the topic alone. "I just...need to take a shower first. Do we have time?"

He smiled a relieved smile back. "Yeah."

"Okay. I'll be quick. Now, my bathroom door doesn't lock right, so I'm trusting you to stay out here." She tried to sound light and teasing, still shaken by how upset he'd been just seconds ago.

He grinned at her. "Well, hurry up; I can't promise I won't get bored and try to sneak a look."

She rolled her eyes and entered her bathroom, closing the door behind her. 

"O'Connell?" He called out to her before the door had even hit its frame.

She popped her head back through the opening. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."


	13. The Thirteenth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Mite Makes Right

January 27, 1994

Maggie woke again in Joel's bed. She'd woken here more times than she'd ever be able to explain, but not once - not even now after their first real date - because she'd fallen asleep there the night before. She knew it was just a matter of time now, before that would change. 

Their date Saturday night had been nearly perfect. He'd been endearingly nervous and had obviously dressed up, trying not to look like he had. He was polite and charming and funny and sweet...and yet they'd managed to retain plenty of that oppositional friction in their conversations that seemed to drive them. If only she hadn't been so sidetracked, worried about being eaten alive my microscopic insects. And a worse moment to have it manifest she couldn't have found - he'd leaned in to kiss her and she'd told him he had to go.

When she'd called his office and asked him to meet her in a field at dusk on Monday night, he'd sounded wary and distant, like he wanted nothing more than to decline and put all of this behind him. He'd shown up anyway, guarded in his disposition. That lasted until a quick kiss from her, followed by a very, very slow one he started in response. She didn't know long they'd stood in that field together, arms around each other, lips together in an unbroken kiss, but it had to have been several minutes. This was nothing like the kisses they'd shared before, which had been frenzied, concupiscent, and leading somewhere very definitely sexual. This was adoring, romantic - there was no mistaking what Joel was telling her with this one. It confirmed what she'd suspected for some time - that he'd fallen for her. She also knew if he'd done so, it was serious, as it had happened against his better judgment and even against his own will. The same way she'd fallen for him. 

"Sorry I ruined our first date," she'd said, as they drew back to smile shyly at each other in the cold, arms still around each other.

"I'm just glad it wasn't me. And we can try again. I mean, if you still want to."

"No we can't. You only get one first date. And that was ours."

"I mean on a second date. I'll cook this time. My place. Friday. What do you say?"

"You can't cook."

"No, I *don't* cook. Which is different. I can actually cook. What do you want?"

"I want to come over two hours before our date and watch you try to cook something. That's what I want. I don't even care what we eat."

"Fine. Get there at 5, then." He hesitated and then kissed her once more. "I'll see you, O'Connell. Thanks for dragging me out here." He turned and walked to his truck, and she watched him walk for a few seconds before calling out to him. 

"You know, I wasn't going to sleep with you, anyway. Not on the first date." He turned on his heel to face her again, now 15 feet away from him, as she continued. "In case you were thinking you'd missed out on something that night. Wasn't gonna happen."

"Oh really?" He looked amused, his dimple flashing at her above his half smile. "I think I could have talked you into it. I'd planned on trying, anyway. I'm pretty persuasive."

"Never on a first date. It's a rule of mine. I told you that way back that time we were in Juneau. Remember?"

"I do." He was closing the distance between them, still smiling. "What you said, actually, was never on a first date 'unless I want to'." He stopped in front of her. "I intended for you to want to."

The look in his eyes sent an excited little shiver through her. She tried to stay teasingly confident, as if he had no effect on her. "Well, I guess we'll never know, will we?"

He smirked at her. "Guess not. See ya Friday." He rolled his eyes good naturally and turned to walk away again.

"'Kay. But Fleischman?"

"Yeah?" He turned again.

"We're definitely fooling around on our second date. Got that?"

He said nothing in response but she saw his dimple return as he turned and opened the door of his truck.

She looked across the bed at him now, the day before what would be their second date. His back was to her and she watched his shoulders slowly rise and fall with each breath. She put her arm around him and pulled herself close, kissing his shoulder through his shirt.

"Oh...this is one of those days, is it?" he asked, his voice tired. He rolled over, eyes still closed but facing her. "I didn't hear your alarm."

"Well, we're at your place. For one. For two, it's only 6:05."

"O'Connell...why'd you wake me up then? It's early. I'm exhausted."

She slid her hand down his chest, hooked her knee over his leg, and pushed him down so he was laying on his back. She climbed above him, straddling his legs. 

His eyes opened a little in surprise. "This is different. What are you doing?"

"I changed my mind. I don't want to wait until our second date."


	14. The Fourteenth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just after Hello I Love You

February 27, 1994

Her felt her against him and tried to remember whether he'd been with her last night, before remembering he hadn't. He'd specifically taken the night "off," to to speak, declining her invitation to dinner in at her place, telling her he had to catch up with some medical journals. It was their first Saturday apart since this all began between them. It was a truthful excuse, of course, but he also was just plain exhausted and in need of some solitary time to recuperate. He'd fallen asleep on his couch somewhere in the 9 o'clock hour with a Lancet from 3 months ago still open on his chest. When he woke that way at 1:30, he decided to just stay on the couch, too tired to get up and move to his bed. Whatever it was that happened these mornings had dropped him back in his bed anyway and with Maggie snuggled up next to him. Which meant he was about to have sex.

The problem, Joel should have realized given the strength of their attraction to one another, would be the trouble they had not giving in to it. Years of the only contact between them being furtive and off-limits had left them both unable to refuse the chance whenever it presented itself, in case it didn't happen again. 

Everything was still a secret, too, which really didn't help matters. She didn't want anyone to know about them yet (or maybe ever, he wasn't sure), so he worked very hard to keep his public persona platonic around her, content to defer their romantic contact to their date evenings. She, on the other hand, seemed to really relish the temptation that came with that secrecy. He should have seen it coming, of course, but didn't - Maggie was so driven by risk, surprise, and the element of danger in her normal life, it followed she'd not be any different in a romantic relationship. She seemed to crave the dopamine rush of almost being caught much more than she wanted not to be caught. Ironically, given that she'd be angriest should their secret come out.

The end result, of course, was that it almost always fell to him to keep them from being caught when they found themselves momentarily alone. He was certain it would be his fault if they were found out, regardless of how careless she was willing to be. The whole thing made it feel sometimes like he was dating a nymphomaniac - something the sixteen year old in him relished but the thirty one year old found stressful and exhausting. But entirely worth it nonetheless.

They were great together. Still. He'd been a little worried their first time was nothing to judge them by, that once the novelty and illicitness had dissipated, the sex wouldn't be quite so exhilarating. He'd been wrong. They'd always known exactly how to push each others' buttons and drive each other crazy with anger, so of course they'd know how to do the same but in good cause. What happened between them in private - and often semi-private - was incredible. He was just certain they'd get caught...and then he'd get in trouble with her. And everything might end.

Like guilty teenagers, they'd had things happen neither could stop - once, she'd been perched on his desk after both his last scheduled appointment and Marilyn had both left at the end the day. Two minutes later, he was on his back with her on top of him on that same desk, only to hear the front door open and Shelly's voice ring out, Miranda in tow in her carseat. Maggie had literally hidden under his desk while he'd stepped over his tie on the floor and hurriedly rebuttoned his shirt to head Shelly off at the office door. 

After he'd confirmed - again - that it was completely normal for newborns not to blink, he locked the front door and reentered his office, intending to chastise her and point out that their behavior was going to get them caught. He forgot all about it when he saw her waiting for him, reclining on top of his desk, her shirt half unbuttoned and with that glint in her eyes.

Roughly the same sort of scenario almost played itself out in various places around town, one night outside the Brick, and even once at his own house, when Ed turned up unannounced with a movie and Maggie frantically fictionalized a cabin repair to pretend to be there fixing - without her shoes on and with her shirt on backwards. Each time, they'd almost get caught and the second they were alone again would dive right back in. And they were only 4 weeks into dating. Or whatever this was.

Beyond just sex, though, their nights together were great. She'd always been fun to be with, and their nights in were pleasant and romantic, even, sometimes. They still bickered and disagreed, even to the point that she'd stormed out on him once, and they had that issue with overcompetitiveness still to fix, but they had fun together. And a hell of a lot of really great sex. He wouldn't trade a minute of it, but...but he was starting to worry what was going to happen longer-term. Would it still be like this in 6 months - secretive and open-ended? And, he hated to even think of it, what about a year from now, when his contract was up? What would happen then? Was this serious? Or just fun?

Her lips against his neck shook his thoughts back to the present. 

"O'Connell." He said it almost as a hello.

"Fleischman." They still went by their last names, at least in conversation. He'd slipped up and called her Maggie their first time (well, first real time) and thus they'd become Joel and Maggie during sex - which he kind of liked. He'd never imagined his own first name could sound like it did to him sometimes, coming from her. 

He rolled over to face her, her eyes still sleep-saturated but dark and amorous. Yup. He was definitely about to have sex. 

"You finish your homework last night?" She tickled his hairline on the back of his neck with the tip of her finger and slung her right leg over his. 

"No. I'm months behind and verging on malpractice levels of neglecting my professional education...." She traced her finger around to his chest, drawing it slowly down the middle of his t-shirt, looking nonplussed and not remotely sympathetic, her eyes hypnotic and causing him to stumble over his words a little as he tried to finish his thought. "...because when you are around, you make it nearly impossible for me to keep my hands off of you..." He leaned in and kissed her slowly. "...or think about anything else." He kissed her again. 

He felt her smile against his lips. "I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for you. I'm in good standing with the FAA still somehow. I'm not sure what your problem is..." she kissed his bottom lip, tugging on it slightly with her teeth as she pulled back to look at him again, smirking, knowing that drove him crazy.

He wasn't sure whether to be euphoric that she knew what he liked so intuitively or terrified he'd never have total control over himself again. "I don't think you have work as hard to resist things - I don't look at you the way you look at me."

"Oh yes you do. I just have more sexual self-control than you do," she said without a hint of irony as she pulled his shirt off over his head and pressed her lips to his throat.

He groaned a little at the sensation and closed his eyes, determined to continue arguing. Something else they did during sex that shouldn't have surprised him. "Ohhhh....that's empirically untrue, Ms. C'mon-Please-No-One's-Looking...."

"Tell me you want to stop."

He chuckled - he wasn't that stupid. "We're gonna get caught, you know..."

"By who?"

"By someone in town." His hands slid down her body, fingertips gathering the hem of her tank top, which he pulled off and tossed on the floor before kissing her along her collarbone. "Someone we know."

"We'd better not..."

"Well, O'Connell...I mean, practically speaking, this can't stay a secret forever." He pushed her shoulder down onto the bed and moved above her, leaning down to kiss her again. 

"Why?" She'd turned her head so he missed her lips, and her voice was suddenly sharp and irritated. He moved to kiss just below her ear, talking softly as he went.

"Because...because it can't. This is a small town. Someone is going to notice this. And it's not sustainable. I mean, just from a practical perspective, we...I mean. If this works out, aren't we gonna..." He wasn't sure what the end of that thought was or even should be. 

"Aren't we gonna what?"

This time he pulled back to look at her again. Her face was inscrutable again. "Well, out ourselves? At some point? I mean, should this progress, it would seem like...I don't know."

She smiled and reached for him again, combing her fingers through his hair, pulling him down to her lips again. "We'll just worry about that later."

His mind wanted the answer, though - even as his body was screaming at him to shut up - so he pushed a little more. "When later, though?"

"I don't know. Later later. Not right now." She started kissing his neck again.

"Okay. I just... I've never had a secret girlfriend before. I'm struggling with protocol. That's all. I can try to manage, though...." He kissed her again.

"I am not your girlfriend." Her voice was light and teasing but her words penetrated his psyche like a record scratch.

"You're not?" He pulled back to look at her. She looked not the least bit sorry. Or even guilty.

"No." She looked almost confused now, watching him absorb the startlingly disappointing revelation. "What?" 

"Wow. Thanks a lot."

"Fleischman...what's wrong? I didn't mean anything by it. I just wouldn't use that term." She pulled him down to her again, her lips meeting his just in time for his next question.

"Why not?"

She sighed loudly. "I don't know. It sounds a little juvenile, doesn't it? Boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"What would you suggest?"

"I don't know. Friends?"

"Friends?!" He pulled back and well out of her orbit this time. "There's sounding juvenile and then there's sounding...not together."

"Fleischman..." She was squirming and fidgeting underneath him. "Come back down here. Why is this so important anyway?"

"Is that why all of this is secret? You don't ascribe any value, any sentiment, to us?"

She rolled her eyes. "Fleischman. I told you I didn't want to get into this right now."

"Fine. We won't." He moved to lay next to her again. So much for sex.

"Oh come on. I don't want to fight about this." She turned on her side and ran the back of her fingers along his cheek. "Why does what we're doing require a label anyway?"

"Because definitions really help me understand what's going on. What I need to be doing. What *you're* doing."

"Why? If you were my boyfriend, how would things be different?"

"They just would be. I'd know where I stand with you. I thought I did."

"Stand? We're dating. No, we haven't told anyone else, but we are. And sleeping together. I'm not dating - or sleeping with - anyone else. And I love you. We spend a good portion of our time together. So why do you need so badly to...what? What's wrong now? You're staring."

"What did you just say?"

"Oh Fleischman, are we back to this again? I'm really not sleeping with anyone else. I promise. I'm all yours, for the time being at least. Surely that isn't a surprise at *this* point. I mean...what's wrong?"

"You love me?"

She smiled fondly at him. "'Course I do. Why else would I bother to argue about this with you?"

"You love me."

She rolled her eyes again. "The feeling's wearing off a little right now, but yes."

"Except you're not my girlfriend?"

"No." She made a face at the term.

"But you do love me?"

"Yes."

"And no one is allowed to know about us?"

"It's really no one else's business, now, is it?" She moved closer to him, putting her arm across him and pulling herself above him. 

"I guess not...no..."

"Then, Joel..." she intoned, using that tone she did when they were together like this, and then kissed his lower lip again. "We're fine. Right?" 

He never could resist that look in her eyes. And she loved him! He'd never imagined, first, that she even felt that way and, second, that she'd ever say it first. All thoughts of arguing about nuances in terminology disappeared as kissed her back.


	15. The Fifteenth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between Fish Story and The Gift of the Maggie

March 27, 1994

"Fleischman." Her back was to him but her voice sounded irritable and not at all excited to have felt him there. Of course they'd wake up together, today of all days.

"O'Connell." His voice, too, was flat-sounding and unenthusiastic. His hand was on her hip with his fingertips just inside the waistband to the boxer shorts she was wearing. The pair of his with the little planes on them she'd stolen weeks ago and kept. He didn't usually mind because they were sexy on her for some reason. A little awkward, too, given that it had been his mother that had bought them for him - their last shopping trip together before he'd moved to Alaska. She'd picked thematically - he had a pair with polar bears, another with snowflakes, and then these - the planes because she'd watched a NOVA special about Alaska and all she knew of it was glaciers and that people got around by air taxi. He doubted either of them would have ever guessed he'd wake up in bed with his pilot girlfriend wearing them 5 years later. Well, no, not girlfriend. Not anything really right now, he didn't think. Not after last night.

They had been doing surprisingly well together until then. Their amorous period had continued unabated after they'd officially - but secretly - started dating. Their carelessness had continued, too, even as they settled into a slightly more domestic dating routine. Several almosts happened in various spots around town with several people coming quite close to unravelling their secret. Shelly had been the most recent close call but everyone from Adam to Eric had almost happened upon some clue at one point or another. Every time they escaped without notice they got less careful. Well, she did. He just became more convinced that they'd get caught, something she didn't have a plan for - going public.

Last night, they'd had dinner out, at the Brick; their evenings in together had made them feel conspicuously absent from the public eye on weekend nights. So they'd gone out together but not quite so obviously, arriving separately and concealing things by sitting amongst a small crowd. They'd dined with Ed, Chris, Ruth Anne, and Marilyn, sitting across from each other around a big table. Shelly plopped down from time to time when things slowed, joining their collective conversation. Maurice held down one end of the bar, mostly talking to Holling, but obviously had an ear on the group's conversation, periodically adding his two cents by shouting across the room when the topic was of interest to him.

Under the table and out of view, Maggie kept in close contact with Joel, sliding her toes along his ankle and pressing them into him when she wanted his attention or when their eyes met. Every now and again they would lock eyes and the glimmer in hers would hypnotize him for a second or two. After a few rounds of that, he started looking for an exit strategy so they could get started with the rest of their evening somewhere more private.

"O'Connell," he broke obtrusively into the middle of the group's conversation, earning a disapproving scowl from her. "Sorry, but, uh, were you going to fix my latch tonight? I was going to take off, but I can't sleep with the front door hanging open, and it's..." he pulled his arm up to pretend to look at his watch...which wasn't there, throwing off his elaborate pantomime. "...well, late, in any event, I know that. So can you...drop by after this, or...something?"

Five pairs of eyes turned to stare incredulously at him before Ruth Anne spoke. "You really expect her to come out there late on a weekend night and fix your door? Push something heavy against it and wait until tomorrow. Good lord, Joel."

"Oh, it's fine Ruth Anne, I can do it. He'll whine until I get it over with, and I'd rather this than a call from him at 8 o' clock tomorrow morning. I can borrow that book you told me about, too." She quirked an eyebrow at him expectantly.

He looked at her confused, and she dug her toes in a little harder. "Oh me? I thought you meant Ruth Anne. What book? Oh that book. Yeah. That one we'd talked about. Okay. Yeah, I'm done with it so you can have it. To read. You know, when you come fix my doorknob. Uh, latch." She was really glaring now, so he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out some cash, tossed it onto the table to cover his share, and rose from the table. "I'm just gonna run to the restroom and then take off."

He got to the back, only to find the men's room already occupied, so he stood in the hallway, turning to look at the fliers that dotted the corkboard opposite the doors, cursing his poor performance back at the table and the unnecessariness of it all.

"Well handled, Fleischman. That didn't seem suspicious at all," came Maggie's sarcastic voice. 

"Says the woman who couldn't keep her toes off my ankle all night. And are you really helping matters standing back here with me now? How does this qualify as covert?"

"No one up there thinks anything is going on other than that you're the world's most difficult tenant. They all feel bad for me and probably are at the table right now talking about what an insufferable pain in the ass you can be sometimes. C'mere." 

She pulled his tie - and him with it - toward her, kissing him. He pulled back quickly to look at her incredulously. 

"Wait. You're irritated with me for artlessly almost blowing our cover even though *you* were giving me that look all through dinner where everyone else can see it, and now you come back here and kiss me in full view of..."

"...the payphone? It's fine. That wall gives us cover." She smirked and then leaned in to kiss him along the side of his throat, tugging again on his tie to bring him back within closer range.

"O'Connell! What if someone comes back here and sees us? Even though I should mind being called a pain in the ass and treated like a total embarassment, I'm willing to play along again, but someone is going to figure this out."

"Don't be ridiculous. I just came back to tell you, clumsy invitation or not, I was actually planning on coming home with you tonight. We can't leave at the same time now, because of your idiotic and indiscreet display, so I was thinking you leave first, and I'll meet you there in 10 minutes. Okay?"

"Really? You sure you still want to go through with this? Incur the risk to your reputation I apparently present?"

She gave him that look and tugged on his tie again. "C'mon...it's been three whole days...."

"You're insatiable, you know that?" He put his hands on her waist and smiled a little.

"Like you mind..." She leaned in and nuzzled his ear with her nose, kissing his neck.

"Being treated like an embarassing secret of yours? I should refuse you, you know. You'd deserve it." He couldn't even pretend to sound mad at her.

"You won't." Her lips moved along his neck and her arms wrapped around his back.

"You're right. But I should." He traced the fingertips of his right hand up her spine.

She pulled back and smiled at him, the tip of her nose touching his. "Oh, don't take it so personally. You know I love you." He closed his eyes and leaned in to brush his lips against hers, and she felt him smile against her lips.

"You have a funny way of showing it." He kissed her, moving his hand through her hair and to the back of her neck. He'd meant it to be just a quick kiss to stop them arguing, but she'd met his kiss so enthusiastically, they both lost momentary track of time and place. His hands untucked the back of her shirt and moved underneath it and along her skin. She leaned against him and he felt the back of his head hit the wall. That didn't shake either of them out of their haze. An annoyed but familiar Oklahoma drawl did.

"Son, you can't find a more dignified location to fornicate this evening than outside the john?" 

Maggie pulled her lips back from Joel's, revealing his shocked face to Maurice, who was standing behind her. 

"Joel?" came Maurice's confused response. Maggie knew it wouldn't be more than a second before he filled in the remaining blanks. 

"And *Maggie*? Huh. I'll be damned. Well, carry on, by all means. 'Scuse me."

"Fleischman! Why did you do that?" Maggie shout-whispered at him as Maurice walked away. 

"Do what? How is this my fault?" he tersely whispered back to her. "Every single part of this was your doing." 

"You kissed *me* that last time." 

He rolled his eyes but decided the smarter course was not to respond and let her continue. 

"We need to go up front and explain ourselves before he says anything to anyone."

"We're finally going to tell them?"

"No!"

"Oh, you aren't seriously contemplating continuing this ruse, are you? What are we going to say, O'Connell? 'It was an impromptu medical exam - it only looked like we were two minutes from screwing against the bathroom door.'"

"Just let me do the talking. And hurry up - Maurice is the biggest gossip in town." She gave his tie another tug and turned to walk up front.

"This isn't a leash..." Joel mumbled, straightening his tie. "And what could we possibly say to deflect this..." He started after her and got five steps before... 

"Maggie! Why didn't you tell me you and Dr. F. were hookin' up again? No wonder he's in such a good mood lately." Shelly's voice rang out from the table where they'd been dining, where Maurice now stood. Shelly had a mile-wide smile, and the rest of their tablemates sat smirking at them. Maggie froze, and Joel bumped into her when she did, putting his hands to her hip and shoulder from behind her without thinking.

"Oh, no, no. We were just..." Maggie paused before catching sight of Joel's hand resting near her waist and stalling completely out as she brushed it off. Joel rolled his eyes again, taking his hand off her shoulder, too.

"Broken latch, my foot, Joel," Ruth Anne said, smiling. "I hope this means the both of you will squabble a bit less now."

"I doubt it," Chris started in, that familiar pensively philosophical tone to his voice, "I mean, that's why this happened in the first place. They're yin and yang. That whole love/hate dichotomy Lespinasse rapped about. You know, where hatred is simply loving someone to a point of passion that unhinges your soul."

"Unhinged or not, Maggie's finally managed to do what no amount of money or coercion I could come up with could; she found a way to get Joel to stay here voluntarily." Maurice looked pleased with himself and managed to have a swagger to him even while seated.

"Oh *and* you're staying now?" Shelly jumped up and clasped her hands together, looking eagerly at Joel. "Bitchin'! You two takin' the plunge together, too?"

Maggie and Joel still stood frozen, both uncomfortable. 

"I'm not getting married," she said just as he said, "I never said I was staying." They both started a little at each other's statement and turned to look at each other in surprise.

Marilyn's quiet voice penetrated the silence that followed. "Uh oh."

Ruth Anne jumped in to help give them a graceful out. "Let's everyone give them a little breathing room, shall we? I think they were just leaving anyway. Good night, you two."

They drove separately to his place, her truck following his. He rehearsed his side of the discussion he knew was coming, ready for it to come the moment his door shut. And it did. But not like he expected. 

He'd known they'd eventually have to talk about the temporary nature of his post and what should come next - would she go or would he stay? Her first question, he knew, would be whether he would consider staying, despite what he'd just said. And she wouldn't like the answer he had to give her.

He entered his cabin first and heard the door close behind her as he turned around to look at her.

"O'Connell, look, I'm sorry we got caught. You can't be all that surprised, though. It was bound to happen. I'm really sorry I said no so fast to staying. I wasn't ready for a confrontation about it, particularly one so public, but I know you probably want to know what my plan is. And we probably should talk about the future. At least a little. Right?"

"Do you love me?"

He stared at her a moment. He hadn't anticipated that question at all. "What?"

"Fleischman. Do you love me? I've told you I love you - several times - and I mean it. I do. Against all reason, I know I'm in love with you. So the rest of that stuff doesn't matter because it'll all work itself out in the end. If you love me, too. I think you do. But you've never said you do. Do you?"

He did. He'd been in love with her for a long time, back before all of this started up between them, before Mike, before her emergency appendectomy, before Juneau, back so far he couldn't pinpoint its start. But this wasn't how love was supposed to work - it was all backwards and without certainty, and he wasn't about to put his heart out there again without knowing for sure how things would end. He hated suspense, hated not knowing - he even read the endings of books first so he wouldn't bother diving in if it was all for naught. He couldn't have been dropped into this place and met her and fallen in love for nothing, though. But he knew he didn't want to stay and that she'd never want to go, two somethings which sounded far away from working themselves out. And despite what she said she felt, she clearly questioned their long-term viability, too, having just shouted that she'd never marry him at a bar full of people. He also liked to think he had the slightest bit of romantic inclination within him and wasn't eager to have the first time he told her be in response to being asked the question point blank and under the threat of an argument.

His several seconds' reflection and hesitation registered suddenly with her, her eyes resigning into a hardness he didn't like. "Wait, no, O'Connell, at least let me..."

"See ya, Fleischman." She still had her coat on and keys in hand and just turned and left. He hesitated again before following her out to his porch, in time to see her truck pull away.

All of this meant that waking up with her less than a foot away from him was far from ideal. Since she'd left, he figured she was done talking - and probably done with him - but he at least had to try to apologize again.

He gave her hip a tentative squeeze. "I'm really sorry about last night. Not just that we got caught, but about...well, you know..."

"Don't start with me."

"O'Connell. Come on. At least do me the courtesy of hearing me out. The thing you have to understand is...can you roll over? I don't want to have this conversation with the back of your head."

"No."

He sighed in frustration. "Fine. O'Connell, even if I tell you right now that I love you." He paused before continuing softly, "...which I do - you won't believe me. You'll think I'm just saying it because I'm supposed to and because of everything that happened last night. But I didn't want to tell you this way. I wanted..."

"...to work and overwork it until it came out exactly right at exactly the right time? Like you want to do with everything? You're too much of a perfectionist - you won't do anything unless you can guarantee it will go exactly according to plan. You can't just let things be what they are."

"You're ending this just because I want to do a good job?"

"Ending it?" She turned over to face him. "I'm just mad at you, Fleischman. You're such an melodramatist - I'd never have guessed it of you."

She still looked angry but had that same adoring sparkle in her eyes that came when she was teasing him, and seeing it filled him with reassurance. 

"We didn't break up last night, then?"

"Break up?" She rolled her eyes a little. "No, Fleischman. No. I am no more your ex-girlfriend than I am your girlfriend."

"That's not terribly reassuring."

She put her hand to his shoulder. "Look. We love each other. We both know that now. I don't know what else you want. You're so stuck on labels and gestures and rigid formality. And purposeful forward motion."

"I am not."

"You are. I can prove it. Why'd you propose to Elaine?"

"What? What does she have to do with anything?"

"Answer my question."

"For the same reason anyone does. Because I thought I wanted to marry her."

"You said before she told you it was time and you caved."

"Caved? Acquiesced, maybe. Agreed. Whatever the word, it was just the next logical step for us."

"Exactly. No mention of love, just logic. And the decision was less to do with her and more to do with what you thought you should do."

She wasn't terribly far off which made him immediately try to refute her assessment. "That's a really unfair characterization based on almost no information from a person who saw none of this transpire. And anyway, what does this have to do with you and I?"

"How'd you ask her?"

"Why?"

"I'm curious now. How'd you ask?"

"I...uh, I don't know O'Connell, it was a long time ago. Are we okay, though, you and I?"

"Fleischman."

"Fine. Um. Okay. Well, it was over dinner. Nice place in midtown. Flowers. Ring in the champagne glass. I'd talked to her dad first. The whole cliched thing. I told you before, she'd hinted - a lot - that it was well past time to do it, and so I did what I was told to. She picked the place. The day. Even the ring. I just..."

"Went through the motions?"

"I'd be more apt to categorize it as 'did what I knew she wanted.' I'm not sure what you're getting at with all of this."

"How old were you?"

"Twenty one."

"Twenty one? You got engaged at twenty one? And that was past due somehow? You were still a kid!"

"Hardly. I was finishing my second year of medical school. Anyway, we were gonna move in together when she finished college. Her parents were absolutely not going to be okay with that unless we..."

"Ah ha!"

"Ah ha, what?"

"None of this was about how you felt about her, about love. It was all about compulsory response."

"Come on; that's hardly fair. We were together a long time. You don't think I felt something more than just obligation when..."

"Am I wrong?"

Joel paused. There was no point in arguing; she knew him too well. "I did care about her, though. A lot. And I absolutely would have married her."

"I know that. And that's my point. How much can marriage be worth to you if you'd have married someone you felt obliged to? The real question is would you still marry her?"

They'd lurched into a thinly veiled discussion - a discussion he knew enough to know they weren't ready to have. He tried to joke around the heavy topic. "Well, it'd be a little tricky. I'm in love with you. She didn't like that the first time around, and I doubt she'd like it much now."

"I don't mean her specifically." Maggie smiled a little sadly at him. "And you know what I'm asking you."

"I do. That's not what this is though. I feel so much more..." He paused, felt uncomfortable and unpracticed at talking about his feelings for someone like this. "Marrying you would be the farthest thing in the world from an obligation to me." He saw his words and the feeling behind them register with her, but he hurried back to his comfort zone of practicalities and planning. "Anyway what are my other options? Stay forever in limbo with someone because I love her too much to leave even though she'd never marry me?"

"Maybe she doesn't believe in marriage. With anyone, even someone..." Her voice was quieter, eyes guilty and apologetic.

"Well, then maybe mine isn't the only rigid mindset at work here..."

They both regarded each other seriously in silence for a long while, consciously making the decision to forget about the room burning down around them. Maggie stroked Joel's arm, her gaze softening as she nudged the conversation back from the dangerous precipice it was teetering upon. 

"Did you get down on one knee, too? With Elaine? I can't picture you doing that."

"Yeah. I did." His dimple appeared and he blushed ever so slightly at the memory, putting his hand back on her leg. "It's what's done, you know. And I'm nothing if not tradition-bound. And formulaic. Apparently." He paused a moment before continuing. "I didn't completely understand this need you had for this to be a secret, but if that's what you wanted, I'm sorry it's not now. And I shouldn't have hesitated when you asked me if I loved you. Because I do. I've been in love with you for...I don't even know how long now. I've just worked so long to keep that feeling buried...and part of me was waiting for the right moment to tell you. But, in all honesty, it wasn't just this pursuit of order and perfection you accuse me of that made me hesitate, either. The conversation we're avoiding finishing right now? You and your fear of permanency? Me and my job and New York? I didn't want to say it when I don't know how long it'll last between us."

Maggie sighed. "I guess I can understand that."

"Right. So do you think we're..."

"Fleischman, your next question better not be whether we are going to last. Or what's going to happen next."

"But aren't you worried about any of that?"

"Yes. But do you think we can solve it? Look, I'm happy with how things are right now. Stop trying to fix everything, answer every question, plan for every eventuality. We're together right now. Just be content to be."

"Are you still mad at me?" He ran his fingers along her thigh at the hem of her boxers.

"A little. Then again, I usually am. You?"

"No." He smiled a little at her. "So, uh...should we have breakfast, then? What do you want to do?"

She pulled herself close and kissed him softly. "Make up."


	16. The Sixteenth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Lovers and Madmen

April 27, 1994

"Morning, Fleischman." 

They'd spent the night together again. It didn't happen every night, but had a few times already this week. He was to avoiding calling attention to it, putting structure around it, but this tentative relationship of theirs was intensifying. Which wasn't helping the sinking realization he was going to stay.

He knew he shouldn't feel resentful about staying, but he did. A little bit. They'd never directly talked about it, but the conversation in his office when he'd been furious about the subterfuge involving Pete was telling. She was trying everything she could to make staying seem palatable. First she'd done the seder, then gone out of her way to try to find him a colleague. It was thoughtful, it was sweet, and, deep down, he appreciated it. But. It made painfully clear she wasn't considering leaving. That put the onus on him to decide what was more important - Maggie or going home. Just because the answer was Maggie didn't mean he was thrilled she was under no pressure to have to make hard choices and sacrifice. Not to mention that she refused to guarantee commitment and got cold feet on and off.

"'Morning." He felt her wrap her arm around him and pull close, putting her feet together with his under the covers. She made a contented noise which, along with her proximity, made him feel guilty for the thoughts he'd been having. He opened his eyes and saw her dresser. "Uh. Um. Didn't we fall asleep at my place?" They had, he knew. She'd made fun of his wanting to retire at such an early hour, claimed not to be tired, and curled up next to him as he read. She fell asleep right away, and he read another hour with her sleeping against him before turning off his light.

"Oh you're kidding me. Did we..." She opened her eyes. "Yeah, we did. Well, this is new. We both moved this time. Well that's strange. I didn't think that was a possibility."

He rolled over to face her. "As if us moving singly is completely normal. I guess this hasn't ever happened on a morning after we spent the night together, has it?"

"No. We haven't spent that many nights together, though. Have we?"

"Not during the week usually. But it's been quite a few." He kissed her, his lips lingering on hers long enough that he did it again. "We've been together awhile now." He smiled at her as he pulled back.

"When did this start? Us, I mean. Like this."

"Uh..." he pretended to think, despite knowing the date exactly. "January sometime. Right?" 

"Maybe. Doesn't seem like that long. I thought maybe once we started sleeping together, we'd stop having this happen. Guess not."

"Another pattern that isn't one." 

"At least we wake up together and not strewn around town. I am glad this doesn't happen with me and, I don't know, Maurice or someone."

"Are you saying I'm the person in town you most want to wake up next to?"

"I wouldn't go *that* far. You're not last on my list, though."

"Oh stop - you'll make me tear up with all this heartfelt sentiment. What are we going to do?"

"About what?"

"Well, my truck's at my place. And your truck's at my place. And we're here..."

"Huh. Yeah. Do you have to go to work today?"

"It's a weekday."

"It's Friday, though." She had a playful twinkle in her eyes. "Call Marilyn. Tell her you're sick. Play hooky. Stay here with me." She leaned in and kissed his lower lip and gently scratched along his chest with her fingernails.

"O'Connell. Come on. I have patients. That's why I'm stuck out here in the first place, remember? To give the best medical care an Ivy League education can provide in the middle of nowhere to people who couldn't tell a spirometer from a bicycle pump. And who appreciate it even less than they understand it. But I still have to do it, even on Fridays."

"Great." She unentwined herself from him and rolled over. 

"What?"

"You're in one of those moods today."

"What moods? The kind of mood where I have to go to work because people have appointments with me?"

"If you don't want to stay, don't stay."

"O'Connell...come on. I can't not go to work; surely you understand that."

"That's not the staying I mean." She sat up and got out of bed, still wearing his apparently now-stolen Columbia Med shirt and stalked out towards her living room. "I'll call Ed to see if he can pick us up, take us to your place."

"O'Connell..." He chided himself, figuring he'd been responsible for jinxing himself into starting this flight, having felt frustrated earlier when all she did was snuggle sweetly against him. He should have known better than to launch into a focused and unprovoked attack on Cicely, something Maggie always defended jealously and fiercely. He sighed and rose from her bed to follow her into her living room. She was standing with the phone in her hand but not dialing. He put his arms around her from behind. 

"What did he say?"

"I didn't call yet. What am I even going to tell him to explain how this happened, why we're stranded here?" She replaced the handset in its cradle. "This situation is too bizarre to be able to ask for help. We're just going to have to walk. It's pretty warm. You've still got shoes here, yeah?" She hadn't shrugged out of his embrace and seemed to be leaning back against him a little.

"Yeah. Hey, and I'm sorry about before. I just...sometimes..."

"If you really don't want to stay, I'll go with you, you know." Her voice was soft, her back to him. "To New York, I mean." 

He almost couldn't believe his ears. "What? Are you serious?"

"Yes. You think you're stuck here because of me, but you're here because of you. Whether or not you realize it, you want to be here. You just don't want to want that. So I'll make the choice yours - when the time comes in a couple months, tell me to move back to New York with you and I will."

"You'd actually come with me?"

She turned in his arms to face him. "Yes."

She was serious, he could see. One word, and he'd get the life he'd always wanted - and Maggie along with it. And yet he couldn't make himself say it.

"You mean it, don't you?"

"Yes." They looked at each other a long time without speaking before the silence finally got to him enough he felt compelled to say something. Try as he might, couldn't make himself say, "Come home with me, then." Part of it, the realization was now enveloping him, was because New York didn't feel like 'home' anymore. Which meant she was probably right. He tried a mild deflection.

"O'Connell, you wouldn't be happy in New York."

"Neither would you." She kissed his cheek. "But I'll go. Tell me you want to go back, and I will. Otherwise admit to yourself that you want to stay. But stop being so angry about this. At the town. At me. At fate. This is your choice. Or it will be when that letter you obsessively check for every day shows up from Anchorage and you're officially free." She gave him a small smile, amused she'd surprised him by knowing about his daily mail panic. "I'm going to take a shower now, and then we can walk to your place. You might tell Marilyn you're running late today." She kissed him again, on his lips this time, smiled at him, and then squeezed his hand before turning to walk away. "I'll be ready in fifteen minutes. Stay away from my desk - that's my new SANC sectional chart and I don't want it wrinkled by someone touching it who can't fold maps. Ivy League education or not. I love you."

He watched her walk back to her bedroom. No matter how many times she'd said it before and despite her parting insult, he'd never felt the reality of those three words manifest more intensely than they did right now. Or had loved her more in return. It was the last time moving back to New York came up. He never even told her when the letter came, as it did the following February, informing him his debt was officially paid. He folded it and put it away in his desk drawer; she was right and he had made his choice.


	17. The Seventeenth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post season 5 in a world where season 6 doesn't exist

May 27, 1994

He felt her hugging him, chest against his back, and moved his hand to rest on her knee, hooked over his under her quilt. They'd spent last night, Sunday night, apart, he reading and talking to his mom and she...well, doing whatever she got up to when he wasn't there. 

She was still an enigma to him in certain respects. In others, he knew her well - better than he could claim to know anyone else - which made her persistent mysterious points feel even further out of reach for him. Anything he didn't know about her at this point was because she wanted it that way. 

His mother - as she did each week - asked how 'things were going' with Maggie and refused to leave the topic, questioning and cross-examining him and his responses like an aggressive courtroom lawyer, wholly dissatisfied with what she viewed as stalled progress between them. As much as he struggled with interpreting what Maggie envisioned for their future, it was nothing next to trying to explain it to his mother. That, and why he wasn't coming back to New York. 

Entirely against type, he found himself largely comfortable with their undefined status, at least for now as they hovered together in partial limbo. They were together, in love, and openly so, but without any expectations, something she viewed as suffocating. He wanted more, of course - permanency - but was content enough for now with what they had. There was no specific routine, no night that was reserved for the other, but even without structure, they spent several nights a week together, going their separate ways the other nights. 

Over time, spare toothbrushes, second sets of reading glasses, and other duplicate personal items began to be left at each other's places, just as their closets now housed a few outfits hanging at the ready for the other person. All of this was done under the guise of necessity - 'just in case we wake up at the wrong place' - but their increasingly shared spaces reassured him and indulged his need for their collective domesticity. It also came in handy on the nights when they meant to go to bed together just as well as it saved them when they woke up together by accident. The car issue they never quite figured out how to solve, however.

As much as his mother found the concept abhorrent, that Maggie termed them 'as together as we're going to be' meant she was very serious about him. To her, it was a floor, not a ceiling - the highest compliment a woman terrified of permanent commitment could bestow. He had no doubts about her feelings for him, and he was more than comfortable sharing his for her. Their future he couldn't specifically envision, but he knew they'd be together. None of this was the life he'd planned, of course, nor what he could have ever believed was in store for them, back during that first summer in Cicely, engaged to Elaine and angry at life for dropping him here.

In the present day, her breath began to tickle the back of his neck, and he smiled as he slid his hand up her bare leg, picturing her laying there wrapped around him, clad in his stolen boxers. He'd slid it a long way up her thigh without finding them and she stirred next to him.

"You can't wait until I'm awake to start into that business? And you call me insatiable."

"You are. And I'm not starting anything, I have to go to work. I'm just investigating." He felt her kiss his shoulder and her toes graze his ankle as she stretched her legs. "Where are my boxers?"

"*My* boxers are in the wash basket right now. I do own other pajamas, you know. On which subject, I'm actually glad you're here. A little. I bought something new I'm trying out to see if I like it."

"You test drive nightgowns? Why am I not surprised..."

"Yes. How else would I make sure something is comfortable?"

"You can't just feel the fabric before you buy things?"

"In a catalog, Fleischman?"

"Fair enough. So? Did this pass your battery of rigorous testing?"

"I like it." She put her hand under his shirt, wrapping her arm around his midsection and moved her lips closer to his ear. "I'm guessing you will, too."

"Why am I a part of this review process?"

"You're really missing my meaning here...Joel..."

He loved how she said his first name, the tone of her voice altered, carefully saying both syllables in slow, slurred sequence. It didn't hurt that she still only used his first name when they... realization suddenly dawned. "Oh...this is *fun* sleepwear you're talking about? And I factor into your clothes shopping now? When did that start?"

"Get over yourself. I didn't buy it with you in mind," she lied smoothly, determined not to inflate his ego any. "I'm just realizing now that I've seen it on that you'll probably benefit. Accidentally."

"Benefit how?"

"It's red. Shorter than I thought it would be. Tight. Low cut. Satin."

He chuckled happily. "Really?! That's...not your normal attire, O'Connell. Did you really not buy this for me?"

"I don't think it would look as good on you."

"Well, I am very intrigued by all of this as a concept, O'Connell, but when do I get to see this thing? Or am I supposed to just lay here and picture it on you and report back? To be honest, I'm pretty happy doing that, but if you're looking for a corroborating opinion, I'm very happy to try to provide one for you..."

Maggie pushed him flat on his back and climbed to sit on top of him. "Well?"

He swallowed hard and blinked twice. "God, you look good in that." His eyes went dark and he grinned at her, fingertips tracing the smooth fabric gently up her side before looking more somber and then a little disappointed. "Why'd you have to do this on a weekday morning?"

She bristled in response to his abrupt change in tone. "As I'm sure you recall, I didn't exactly choose for you to wake up here this morning. What's wrong?"

"I'm gonna be late to work." He looked conflicted and tugged halfheartedly at the hem resting on her thigh.

She rolled her eyes and looked annoyed. "I'm just showing it to you, not propositioning you with it. Anyway, who cares if you're a little late? You're way too schedule-bound for your own good."

"Oh come on, O'Connell. I have an obligation to my patients. To Marilyn. To my practice. To the profession..."

"You're so exhausting sometimes. Fine. Let's get up. God forbid you..." Her voice was frustrated as she moved to get off of him before she found herself suddenly beneath him, their positions reversed. She had no idea he could move that fast.

"Neither of us is going anywhere for a bit. My initial analysis is that you should definitely keep that thing. But I'm a scientist. I can't in good conscience shortcut the rigorous testing and repeatability I owe to any empirical assessment to ensure I'm giving it the very best analysis I can deliver." He leaned down and kissed her, one finger tracing the edge of the fabric beneath her collarbone, before pulling back to look into her eyes. "You're the only thing in my life worth being late for."

She smiled back at him, arching an eyebrow. "I did buy it for you."

"I know."


	18. The Eighteenth

June 27, 1994

The sun filtering between the closed blackout shades had started to interfere with Maggie's sleep sometime after 5. She had laid in bed in a state of half-wakedness for three hours now, catnapping until finally unable to ignore the intensifying light. 

She'd had trouble getting to sleep last night - and the night before. She'd long ago booked a room with a king sized bed, eager to luxuriate in the extra room, but when she laid down, it just felt too big. Especially without Joel.

She'd come so close to asking him to come along, to stay the week with her in Juneau. She'd had some FAA-mandated training to complete Monday but booked the entire week months ago as a treat to herself. As the time neared, she found herself a little unenthused at the prospect of spending the five days - and four nights - alone, though.

She usually loved the opportunity to get out of Cicely, out of her comfort zone, and explore, even in places as small as Juneau. She thought about a whale watching cruise or about going to Mendenhall glacier - something she'd seen countless times from above during take off and landing but never up close. Nothing in Juneau was really jumping out at her and demanding her attention, though. She knew where she'd rather be, and the strength of that impulse worried her.

She'd put on a good show before leaving, telling Joel how glad she was to be getting away - so much so she realized she might have hurt his feelings with her apparent eagerness to escape. He'd sounded surprised to hear from her Monday night. 

"O'Connell? You okay? Why are you calling?"

 _Because I miss you like crazy and couldn't resist the impulse anymore,_ she'd thought but instead said, "Oh, I, uh, I need you to run by my place and...uh...make sure the water isn't dripping in my bathroom sink. That's all."

Joel paused several seconds, processing this. She immediately realized what a stupid cover story this was. She hadn't been ready for his question and had failed completely to create a plausible reason for calling on the fly. He was certain to get held up on the logic of it, or lack thereof. Sure enough, he jumped back in with, "Why would there be; is it broken or something?"

"Yeah, it's been leaking for awhile."

"The one in your bathroom? No it hasn't."

"It has so. So if you could just go check on it for me, that's what I need. Anyway, how, um, how have you been?"

"You saw me 30 hours ago - not much has changed. O'Connell, even if it is leaking, what exactly do you expect me to do about it? I'd think you, of all people, would know I can't fix a sink."

 _Good point,_ she thought, struggling for an answer that could salvage this, get him to accept the reason for the call, and then relax into talking to her for awhile.

"And feed my fish. You need to feed my fish for me. That's the main thing. If the sink is leaking, it's leaking. My fish will die if they don't eat."

Another few seconds' pause followed while he processed this new request. "Do you want me to go do this right now and then call you back or something? Tonight? No part of this is an emergency, you realize."

"I know, but..." She couldn't engineer any more reasonability to this request. She tried to appeal to the healer in him and their collective history. "Don't you care about my poor fish? They'll die, Fleischman. Die. Even the new guy, the one we named after Ed?"

"Don't try to put this on me. Why didn't you care enough about them to think of this earlier?"

"I forgot. C'mon, Fleischman, please?"

She heard him sigh. "How 'bout this, O'Connell. I'll go check on everything first thing tomorrow morning and call you with an update tomorrow night. The fish will survive and surely you can wait that long for this kind of exciting news. It'll cost a lot less if I call you anyway, that's for sure. I can't imagine what you're paying by the minute to make this call from a hotel room." He paused a few seconds, his voice sounding different when he resumed talking, softer and a little unsure. "Hey, um...expensive or not, I'm kind of glad you called tonight. I'll, uh, miss you this week. You know. A little bit."

"Me too." The words had just tumbled out. Something about his nervous admission made her feel warm and happy. She pictured him nervously running a hand through his hair, phone on his shoulder, tucked against his ear as he paced in his kitchen wearing sweats. She was quick to deflect and blunt the effect of their admissions. "Fleischman, this is silly, we just saw each other. Give me a call at 8 pm tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Love you."

She was thrown off a little by his closing. They said it to each other often enough, but never like this, like some couple ending a phone call. Like the two of them were, she thought to herself. She felt herself smile without even meaning to. "I love you too, Fleischman. Talk to you tomorrow."

He'd called as promised last night, and they'd talked a half hour before he apologized for intruding on her vacation time and hung up to let her get back to her evening plans, not knowing that their call was the entirety of them.

Now, on Wednesday morning, she stretched over towards the night stand to turn off the now-useless alarm she'd set for 8:30 am when she saw a figure in her bed out of the corner of her eye and almost screamed at the surprise.

"Fleischman?!"

He sat halfway up quickly, obviously waking from a deep sleep, and stared at her with bewildered eyes. "O'Connell?! Where the hell are we?"

"Juneau. In a hotel room. How the hell did you get here?"

"Fuck if I know - do you know how *you* got here?"

"It's my room. I'm in Juneau all week, remember?"

He exhaled and laid back against his pillow. "Thank God one of us knows where we are." He turned on his side to face her, his face contorted with worry. "Wait, no. How *did* I get here?"

"That same thing that happens to us back in Cicely must have happened to you last night. I didn't think it was possible to...you know, across all this distance and everything." She wondered if somehow he'd gotten here via some manifestation of her own unspoken desire to see him - if that's what caused it all the other times too. Shaking off the 'how' of it all, she moved closer and kissed him. "I'm glad you came."

"'Glad I came'? It's not like I chose to. I just went to bed and I...I have no shoes here, you realize?" Joel sat up again. "No pants. No shirts. I'm wearing what I went to bed in last night - boxers and a t-shirt. I can't leave this room. What the hell am I going to do for clothes?"

"You would see only the negative side of this. Calm down. I can go buy you something."

His eyes narrowed and his mouth opened as if to say something before pausing as his mind obviously censored his first impulse. "Thanks but no thanks, O'Connell; I'm not terribly interested in you picking out my clothes for me."

"What do you suggest we do otherwise, Fleischman? Even if you could fit into my clothes, which you can't, would you really want to? The only other options as I see them are to borrow a hotel uniform or walk around in a bathrobe until you can get something. Look." Maggie stood up and walked to the desk, picking up a pad of paper and a pen. "There's a department store 3 blocks over. I bet it opens at 9. Give me your sizes, and I'll go get you some pants, shoes, socks, and a shirt. Front desk surely has extra toiletries. We can go back and get stuff for the rest of the week later. Together. Since you don't trust my taste."

"The rest of the week?!" She brought the pad and pen to his side of the bed, handing it to him. He started writing a series of words and numbers down before pausing to give her a bewildered and frustrated look. "No, no, no. I'm not staying here. I need to get back."

"I'm not cutting my vacation short over this, and you can't fly a plane. So it looks like you're staying. Finish writing that stuff down, then call Marilyn and tell her you're here and that she has to close your office. You'll be home Friday." He opened his mouth again before closing it and looking at the paper in his hands, scribbling the rest of his directions there.

"And what do you suggest I tell her, exactly? 'I can't come to work, Marilyn, I'm busy time traveling'?"

"This isn't time traveling... it's just...well, whatever it is, it isn't time traveling." She smiled and took the pad from his hands before leaning in to kiss his cheek. "You're a big boy, you'll think of something."

\-----

As lunch was ending later, he playfully glowered at her from across their table. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Enjoying watching you fidget like an unruly child? Why can't you sit still?"

"I feel ridiculous in this."

"Ridiculous? You're wearing slacks and a polo shirt. Like you always are."

"I don't own purple polo shirts. There's a reason why, too."

"That color is eggplant. Not purple. And I think it looks nice on you. As do those pants."

"The pants are fine. But I'm buying a different shirt later."

"Mine'll still look better." She smiled over the top of her glass at him as she took a sip of water. He tried to look annoyed but had a playful sparkle to his eyes; she felt pretty giddy herself, suddenly thrust into their first real trip together. She felt more and more certain - and guilty - that she must be the one causing these mornings and vowed to go back and make a detailed search of her calendar and keep better notes going forward. The lull in the conversation as she thought caused him to start to raise his eyebrows at her, so she jumped back in. "What do you want to do this afternoon? I was looking at this brochure for..."

"Maggie?"

Maggie looked up and then smiled at someone just behind Joel's left shoulder, but it was a smile that instantly put him ill at ease. Maggie rarely faked her smiles, and this looked like something straight out of that terrifyingly revealing trip they'd taken to visit her family in Grosse Pointe. This was Maggie's 'polite society' smile.

"Sally! Hi. How are you?" Joel threw Maggie a bewildered glance as her overly exuberant smile faded into a nervous one, her eyes flickering back to Joel's for a moment. "What are you doing in Juneau?"

"Oh, Mike's here for a conference - I tagged along...and you must be Joel. The doctor."

His eyes were still locked on Maggie's face, but he took his cue from Maggie's initial reaction to the stranger and forced what he hoped was a friendly smile onto his face. He then stood and turned to shake hands with a pleasant-looking blonde woman. "Dr. Joel Fleischman. Nice to meet you. And you are?"

"Sally Lange. Maggie and I go way back to when she first moved to Alaska with...what was his name, Mag, the writer? The one with that terrible book - that guy you dropped out of college for."

"Bruce." Joel looked sideways at Maggie, who looked even more uncomfortable than a few seconds ago. "And it was law school."

"Oh that's right. Bruce." She laughed to herself in a condescending, acerbic way that cemented for Joel why Maggie was acting strange and awkwardly polite - 'friend' or not, Maggie didn't like this woman one bit. "You sure have a knack for picking winners, don't you?" She laughed a little again before giving Joel a little wink as she said, "Not you, of course. And I'm sure those guys were all just detours on the path to true love. Lots and lots of detours... Look, I'd love to stay and catch up, but I don't want to interrupt your lunch, and I have an appointment at 1. So nice to meet you in the flesh, Joel. You're somewhat of a legend, you know - the only guy who was able to talk Maggie O'Connell into committing. We weren't sure whether you were really real or not. I'll have to tell everyone, though; Maggie's husband really does exist. Well, I'd better run. Have a lovely day. Nice running into both of you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Joel said as convincingly as he could while he slowly rotated back to look down at Maggie, whose face rested in the palms of her raised hands. He took his seat, watching her neck and what he could see of her cheeks turn a bright red. 

"Don't say a word," she finally mumbled through her fingers. "I already know what you're going to say."

"How long have we been married?"

"I told you, not a word..."

"I just want to know how many anniversaries I've forgotten. One? Two? Women can be very touchy about that kind of thing and hold grudges."

"Fleischman..." She peeked at him from between the fingers still spread across her face. "You mad at me?"

"Was it a big wedding? Did Chris marry us? Or a justice of the peace somewhere? Wait, don't tell me - you converted! Mazel tov, O'Connell. Did we have a chupah and stomp on the glass together and everything? My mom'll be thrilled. This whole casual approach wasn't something she ever really understood anyway."

"You are mad."

"Me? Just because you've aggrandized our relationship by using the single real sticking point between us - your deep-seated fear of commitment - in a dishonest attempt to make an impression on people I've never heard of that you clearly don't even like? Why would that make me mad?"

The waiter appeared and put a black bill presention folder on the table next to Joel. "When you're ready, sir - there's no rush."

"You can give it to my lovely wife. It all comes from the same place, after all." 

Maggie lowered her hands, her eyes still guilty and embarrassed, taking the folder from their server. "I'm paying for lunch now?" She pulled out her purse and put several bills into the folder, closing it and handing it back.

"I don't have my wallet with me, *sweetheart*." He looked amused with himself before turning to the waiter and adding, "I usually handle all our finances; my wife's just terrible with money. Probably why she married a doctor." The waiter chuckled politely, leaving. 

"Very funny. You done now? I think you've made your point."

"Do I have this right - you don't want to get married out of some fear of conforming to convention and social pressure, but you have no problem pretending to other people that we are...because of societal pressure and convention?"

"Fleischman..."

"Am I your first husband? Or am I Rick's replacement? Glen's?" He paused a few seconds before appending his list with a quieter, "Mike's?"

"You're the only one I've ever...and really just to Sally. She told people, but I only told her. Once. And I only did it because...well...well because. It's complicated. But once it was out there, I couldn't take it back."

He nodded and rose from their table. "C'mon. Let's go." He took her hand and pulled her up from her seat. "I'll pay you back for lunch when we get home." He turned and walked through the restaurant towards the door, and she followed him closely.

"Look, I'm sorry. It's just...this thing with Sally and I goes way back. We have this competitve, judgmental relationship..."

"...so do you and I..." he tossed over his shoulder as they made their way between the tables.

"...and it's very unhealthy..."

"...ditto..."

"...she was always very judgmental of the guys I dated..."

"...batting a thousand still, O'Connell..."

"And of me..."

He stopped at the maitre d' station and turned to look at her. She reached for his hand, hoping the gesture would defuse some of his irritation, or whatever it was he felt. "So you thought now that you had yourself a doctor, you'd upgrade your lifestyle in her eyes? I've seen this plot transpire with you before, you know? When your dad came. I thought you would have outgrown some of this since then. I guess I should be flattered that you always cast me in this role, though. And that it gets more and more formal each time. If less and less reflective of what we are to one another."

"Fleischman..." He turned and walked to the door as she trailed him, still hand in hand. Their eyes met again as he held the door for her behind him, and she tried but still couldn't place the look in his eyes. His face was otherwise placid, and she couldn't tell if he was hurt, furious, amused, or something else entirely.

She stepped outside onto the sidewalk and tugged on his hand so he'd stop. "Will you let me explain this?"

Joel turned around, face still unreadable before she saw his eyes look over she shoulder and register surprise. Before she knew what was happening, he cupped his hand against her cheek, leaned in, and kissed her. His other hand combed through her hair before his arm dropped to wrap around her back. This wasn't remotely what she thought was coming next in the middle of this argument.

He pulled back, smiling at her.

"What the hell was that for?"

Joel leaned in quickly and kissed her again, his hand tracing gently down her arm, to lace his fingers through hers. He moved to kiss just under her ear and whispered quietly, "We should really hit pause on this fight for a minute. Trust me."

"Maggie?" Sally's voice rang out from behind Joel. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt but...I forgot to give you our new phone number...we moved in March..." Maggie turned in Joel's arms, which now encircled her waist from behind. "That was some kiss." Sally held a piece of paper out and Maggie took it. "Enjoy being newlyweds; it doesn't last long."

"It does if you're doing it right," came Joel's voice from behind Maggie.

Sally visibly bristled before recovering. "Well. Give us a call next time you're in Anchorage. See you."

"Thanks, Flesichman," Maggie said, as soon as Sally was out of earshot. "Again." She turned back in his arms to face him. "I'm really sorr-"

He kissed her again as she tried to apologize. When he pulled back, he beat her to talking. "Stop. I thought about it, and whyever it is I got dropped here, it wasn't to fight with you about this. Juneau was my fault last time; the way I see it. This is just you evening up the score. Let's get along in this city for once."

"So you're not still mad? We're okay?"

"One condition. You made this bed, you're going to lie in it. You're my wife until we get home Friday."

"Which means what exactly? No sex and latent hostility?"

He grinned. "You don't have to do anything other than introduce yourself that way if anyone asks, and not contradict it when I do the same."

"Scintillating. That'll sure show me. What do you get out of this exactly?"

"There's a whole field of social psychology that posits you are what the world thinks you are - that who you are is as much derived from how people perceive and therefore treat you as it is what you actually are."

"And you want the world to think I'm your wife for two days? As punishment? Why?"

"'Cause I'm the one deciding. Is it a deal?"

"I don't see what the point is. And this is really unlike you."

"I want to see what would change. What you're wanting so badly to avoid. What would be so awful about this."

"Why? You aren't thinking about..." She trailed off when she saw in his eyes there was no way she'd get an answer to that question. And she wasn't sure she wanted to. "Okay... I mean, why not. It's only two days, and I'd much rather that than fight with you. At least when I'm on vacation."

"Good." He took her hand, eyes crinkled happy at the corners, and started them down the street. "Now, what do you want to go do today?"

"We're holding hands now, too?"

"For two more days, O'Connell..."


	19. The Nineteenth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post season 5 still, where none of season 6 happened

July 27, 1994

Joel heard his front door open a split second before Maggie did. He thought back, mentally confirming he'd locked it before realizing he'd done so while leaving for Maggie's for the night. It had happened again, and they were back at his place. Maggie put a hand on his bicep as they both sat up, listening to footsteps advance towards them, before whispering to him.

"I'm assuming you heard that, then?" 

"Yeah...we're somehow at my place, too. Stay behind me, okay?"

"Oh give me a break, what are you going to protect me with? Your extensive vocabulary?" Despite her response, he felt her hug herself closer to him, slipping her arm around his stomach, as he put his hand on her thigh behind him. "This is why you should have a gun, you know, Fleischman?"

"Oh don't start with me on that shit again, Ms. Second Amendment," he whispered tersely. "I'm not leaving a loaded shotgun in my bedroom; it's bad enough I have to sleep next to one in yours. You're infinitely more likely to accidentally shoot at a friend than purposely at a foe. I can show you the research on this if you want."

"Let's show it to whoever just came in your front door," she hissed in his ear.

"I can't believe you want to argue about gun ownership right now!" He hissed back.

"Well, well, well, look at the Fleischmans this morning. Don't you two look cozy..."

"Adam?!" Joel felt his tension evaporate into confusion as he felt Maggie's grip on his midsection slacken and her relieved exhale on the back of his neck.

"Wow, that Ivy League education of yours continues to pay dividends, doesn't it?"

"What are you doing here?" Joel's voice changed from confused to annoyed. "In my bedroom?"

"My radiant and beloved better half, the very sunshine of my days and moonlight of my nights, is in dire need of a tetracycline prescription for a persistent inner ear infection. And I should be able to assume, as anyone would, that your inability to relate to other human beings would find you, as always, waking up alone. But, as I stand here and take all of this -" he gestured at Maggie and Joel in bed "in, I find myself remembering you're drawn to the single person in town who is at least as crazy and malcontented as you. If not moreso. Still sleeping together, then, are we? That lasted longer than I would have guessed, given how thoroughly unhinged you both are. Tell me you aren't planning on reproducing yourselves, scattering your polluted genetic code out into the world."

"What?" Joel was fairly used to dealing with Adam's unique prickliness and was usually able to give as well as he got, but being caught off guard in his bedroom first thing in the morning with Maggie wrapped around him didn't make him feel like he had the upper hand or anything close to it.

"Sore subject? It's never too early for a family planning discussion, you know, especially with as often as you two....Look, are you giving me the script or not? I have other obligations today."

"Did you tell *him* we're sleeping together, of all people?" Maggie's voice was in Joel's ear, further discombobulating him.

"No," Joel said defensively, head turned toward Maggie, before turning back to address Adam's demand, the word more emphatic this time, "And *no* - I'm not giving you a prescription for an antibiotic for a condition I haven't seen first-hand. Particularly in response to you breaking into my home and demanding it of me at 6:30 am on a Saturday. Not to mention that tetracycline isn't even clinically appropriate for otitis media. If that's even her problem. Which I doubt..."

"She said you'd say that and told me to ask you about the article in the May Lancet about the Harvard study."

"What Harvard st...oh, that? That's hardly relevant here - that research is aimed at combating protracted drug-resistant secondary infections that manifest as a result of...wait, why am I arguing clinical research with a home invader and hypochondriac by proxy? Tell Eve to call Marilyn, make an appointment, come to my office, and I'll look at her ear."

"Fine. She'll be there tomorrow at 2..."

"That's not what I mean by making an app-" Adam wasn't listening and was now looking at Maggie pensively.

"And you. You tell him about your pen pal, did you? He's taking it a lot better than I'd have thought, if he's still tangled up in bed with you this morning."

Joel turned and looked at Maggie in time to see her look first surprised and then angry, eyes still on Adam. "You read my mail?"

Joel kept his eyes fixed on Maggie and murmured, "He does that. What pen pal? What's he talking about?"

A slight grin played at the corner of Adam's mouth and Maggie's eyes widened a little. "Oh! So you *haven't* let the good Dr. Fleischman read Mike's letters to you? And they're so affectionately complimentary - strange you'd want to keep them so private."

"What's he talking about?"

"You remember Mike - tall guy, attorney, wore a lot of beige, slept with her just after you first did, consistently brought you both up short in the mentally unstable department..."

Joel kept his eyes fixed on Maggie's face. "Why is he talking about you and Mike Monroe?"

"Oh what a tangled web we weave..."

"Shut up!" Maggie and Joel turned to shout at Adam in unison, before their eyes met again, his wounded and hers guilty.

"Fleischman..."

"What letters?" After Maggie stayed silent a few seconds, he turned back towards Adam and repeated, "What do you mean by..." But Adam was gone. "Great."

Joel closed his eyes for several seconds before turning back to Maggie. When he did, a wall had gone up over his face. "You and Mike, huh? Still?"

"No. He sent a couple of letters, that's all. We stayed friends. You know that."

"No, I know you parted amicably. Not that you...stayed amicable." Joel paused a moment. "*He* sent letters or you sent letters?"

"*We* sent each other a couple of updates here and there."

"And you never mentioned it because..."

"...because you get that look in your eyes every time he comes up, and I knew you'd assume...well, exactly whatever it is you're assuming that's got you so upset right now."

"You know why I get that look?" 

"He's getting married, you know."

"To you?" He was half facetious and half not.

She smiled fondly at him and he felt her hand slip into his. "You know why Mike and I didn't work out?"

"I'm guessing because he moved to Murmansk and even you aren't that committed to pursuing the wrong guy."

"That, and I had a thing for you."

"It didn't seem to stop you from having a thing for him, too."

"Yes it did."

"Point of fact - you told me we had nothing at all between us. Pretty pointedly. And often."

"Mmmhmm," she pulled him down to lay next to her. "And you believed me?" Her arms were around him, her fingers in his hair. 

"You were fairly insistent. Seemed to really relish telling me it, too. You can't engage in revisionist history on this - you dated him for quite awhile. And slept with him. A lot. I'm not misremebering this, nor did it seem like it was just an elaborate practical joke on your part."

"I wouldn't call it 'a lot'. And I didn't want this then, you know. Us. You and I." She kissed him slowly.

"Yes, that was very clear." He traced along a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear before gently cupping her jaw. "Still is sometimes."

Her eyes searched his. "You know why I didn't want this? Why I dated him?"

"I'm not sure I really want either answer. It's not exactly fun, imagining you with another..."

"I don't like inevitability. You and I felt inevitable. I was hoping I could change it."

"I think you think that's a compliment somehow. It really isn't, though, you know. Saying that you slept with someone else because you liked me so much."

"Because I knew if we got together, that would be it. And you and I were not ready for forever then."

"Are we now?" His eyes were still pained. "You hid that you're still in touch with him."

"I didn't hide it - I just didn't mention it."

"That's the same. You had to stay in contact with the one I dislike the most, too."

"He's the only one who's still alive. And he's marrying someone else. I've sent 3 letters in the past year, Fleischman. You're really reading too much into this..."

"You refuse to let me so much as call you my girlfriend and then carry on with your ex - then you wonder why I'm insecure and confused." 

"You're just determined to be mad, aren't you?" She nudged her knee between his and pulled closer to him. "I've told you I'm in love with you. That you're the one. I mean it. And you're still stuck on terminology. I love you, and I wish you understood how much."

He leaned to kiss her below her ear. "Who's he marrying anyway?"

"Oh. The, uh, deck officer on his vessel. Girl named Elin. 38. Greenlander. Ex-petroleum geologist. His boss, actually." Joel chuckled a little at that. He started coaxing her onto her back while he nuzzled her ear, slipping his knee between hers. He moved above her, chest to chest, pulled back to kiss her lips before moving to the other side. "Figures," he muttered.

Maggie continued her monologue, her voice fading in and out as her attention became more diverted. "They're getting married in September in Nova Scotia. He invited both of us...he always really liked you. I mean apart from the way you and I...and if you think you can deal with...and...I promise it's...you can read his letter if you don't...or if you..." She giggled, mid-babble, his stubble tickling her neck as he moved. "...you're distracting me..."

"I'm meaning to. I don't want to talk about Mike anymore. I want to get your clothes off."

"Fleischman! We just woke up 15 minutes ago. We're arguing. And we did this last night. Twice..."

"I'll stop if you're not interested..."

"Don't you dare..." She pulled him down to kiss him, as his hands slid down her shirt, grabbing the hem and tossing it aside before running his hands through her hair. "Does this mean you're not mad at me anymore?"

"No. I am. You're sneaking around with your ex behind my back. Regardless of how you try to couch things. I'm definitely mad at you." Their lips met and his kiss seemed anything but mad.

"Well...how is that going to change between now and when all our clothes are on the floor?"

"It won't. But if being too mad for sex were an issue, we'd never have gotten anywhere with each other."

"You don't think we need to talk..."

"I'm sure we will," he said as he took his own shirt off and tossed it behind him, smiling and kissing her again before trailing kisses down her throat. "I don't think you and I have ever done this without talking through most of it..."

"I meant about..."

He pulled back up to look in her eyes. "I know what you mean." He kissed her forehead and pulled back again. "I love you. I'm sorry about me feeling...I believe you. I do. Jealousy isn't rational. I know that. I can't stand the thought of you with him. It's not anger, either. It's something else entirely. I don't want to fight anymore, though. Especially about that."

"Really? But we have really good sex when we're arguing..."

"Other way around - we argue really well while we have sex."

"Either or. And I'm down to just barely dressed. So be mad at me again."

"Okay - pick a topic where we don't agree." He kissed down the front of her body, mumbling suggestions as he went. "Tenants' rights. Compassionate conservatism. Free market policy. Astrology. Again." He kissed her belly button. "I saw you reading that bullshit article about psychic surgery and integrative medicine, and I know you're just itching to come after me about that...." He kissed her lower abdomen.

"Where are you going?"

"To make sure you can't make a cohesive argument, regardless of what you pick. I'm happy to argue while we do this, but I don't intend to lose."


	20. The Twentieth

August 27, 1994

Maggie woke snuggled up against Joel's side. He was on his back for once, her knee bent and perched across his hips, his arm around her. She felt comfortable and adored, but a little awkward, given last night. In the past few weeks, she'd started to find herself missing their earlier days, furtive and unable to keep their hands off each other. She'd even started to miss their earliest days - fractured and confrontational with sexual tension lurking just under the surface. She wouldn't trade where they were now for where they'd come from...but she had also missed that spark of unpredictability. If even just once. Joel had fixed that, though. She still couldn't believe he'd had it in him.

She looked at him now and saw him smile without opening his eyes, and then felt his hand on the leg slung across him, tracing his finger up and along the hem of his boxers - his blue plaid ones, another pair she'd started the process of stealing. He pulled her close, turning his head to kiss her temple. 

"Morning."

She sat up and looked around. "We're at your place, you know?"

He opened one eye to confirm her assertion before snapping it shut again. "Guess so. God, that never stops being weird. C'mere." He tugged her nightshirt, pulling her down to settle against his chest.

Last night had been...well, new for her. Surely for him, too. She couldn't wait any longer to detemine whether she'd been party to a perceptible shift in their power dynamic or not.

"Fleischman...about last night..."

He stroked her arm, eyes still closed. "Come on, O'Connell. I know you'd rather pretend nothing happened and I'm fine with that. We don't have to talk about it. You ever get to feeling like that again, just tell me, okay? Until then, let's get up. It's Saturday. I'll pretend I don't know you've effectively stolen these boxers. I'll even let you harshly criticize how I make breakfast. Okay?"

"You really don't want to talk about..."

He turned on his side to smile at her, his eyes adoring and playful. "No. I'm fine. We're fine." He kissed her. "And I know you're fine." His eyebrow moved almost imperceptibly as he said the word. "Really, O'Connell. Nothing's changed. Now get up, otherwise I'll continue to labor under the assumption I do a decent job scrambling eggs."

It had started last night when they'd gone to bed. She'd lingered in the bathroom, touching up her hair and eyeliner before changing into her red silk nightie, only to find him half-asleep when she exited her bathroom. She saw him take in her outfit and arched her eyebrow, assuming he'd find his second wind. Instead, she watched him yawn and then roll away from her, saying, "Good, you're finally done, so I can turn out the light. I'm exhausted." She stared disbelieving a few seconds before sitting down hard on the bed. 

"Fine. Do that." She'd planned on using her outfit to rekindle things between them, but a fight would also do the trick. They hadn't argued in days.

Her terse response prompted an equally terse-sounding, "What now? Look, why don't you just tell me what I did? It'll save us a lot of time, versus me guessing and pissing you off more by not knowing."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means we've done this so often, we kind of have a routine. And I'm tired, so I'd like to fast forward to the part where we stop arguing and I get to sleep."

"This is routine now, too? Fighting? Great."

Joel opened both eyes and sat up to look at her quizzically. "What? You weren't mad at me when we came to bed. What happened while you were in there?"

"Nothing ever happens anymore, Flesichman. That's the problem."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It's fine. Good night." She rolled over so her back was to him. 

Thirty seconds passed before his voice wafted over her, sounding conciliatory and a little more chagrined. "You look beautiful...I didn't know you were gonna change into that." He traced her shoulder strap tenderly with his fingertip. "Were you thinking we'd..."

"Not right now, I'm not."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"And I am fine. Good night."

He put his hand to her shoulder and laid down behind her. "The way you say my eyes give me away, your voice does you. I know you're mad."

"Woodland animals would know I'm mad, Fleischman. I'm not exactly being cryptic with you."

"But you're not going to tell me what's wrong?"

She sighed loudly. "It's just...well, this is very...comfortable. Don't you think?"

"You're upset about being comfortable?" She heard the cautious grin in his voice. "Why am I not surprised? You're nuts, O'Connell." He kissed where her shoulder met her neck. "I love you, but you are."

"I don't mean comfortable, exactly, but...well, remember when we first started up, and we were always worried about getting found out?"

He chuckled. "I remember *you* were worried. I was just worried I'd get blamed." He put his hand on her side. "What put that thought in your mind all of a sudden?"

"Well, it's just...I mean, don't you miss that? Even a teeny, tiny little bit?"

"Miss both of us being completely unable to exercise any sexual self-restraint and me living in a constant state of terror that we'd embarrass ourselves and you'd get pissed off at me? No. Not really."

"Not that stuff. Just...it was different than it is now. That was kind of fun, that covert, conspiratorial nature to things. Having a secret and this element of...I don't know, turpitude to us. Ya know?"

He lifted his head a little, looking over her, playfully suspicious. "Turpitude? What am I, some ignominus vice of yours?"

"I didn't mean it personally...it just..."

"What, then?" His craned to see her face, watching a blush creep up the side of her neck. He pulled her flat on her back beside him. "Wait, is this about sex?"

"Oh, so now you're interested?" She was irritated at how well he could read her now and was quick to deflect. "You would boil it down to that."

"Okay, what, then? You're upset. Disappointed. You wish we were still a secret..." He paused, genuinely perplexed at what she was getting at, before his self-confidence slipped and he considered a plausible if disappointing rationale. "You're still kind of embarrassed we're together, aren't you? Really? I have not forced one hint of formality between us - inward or outward, no matter how much I want to. I hardly do anything in public that even approaches affectionate, let alone territorial; we don't so much as hold hands with each other. You want even less than that from me?"

"Flesichman, no. It's not that."

"What, then? Would you care to tell me, because all I know is that you're laying here beside me in bed angry at me, wishing whatever this is was still a secret."

"Not a secret... just that we might still..."

"Might what?"

"Well...get caught."

"Caught like..." 

"Caught like together." She felt her face flush again. "You know, like someone might...see us..."

"See us? Hold on, you mean *see* us see us?! That's what you miss? That's what you liked? What, was getting caught some kind a turn on for you?" She felt herself blush more. "God, it was, wasn't it? This *is* about sex!"

"No. No. Not entirely. I didn't say I wanted to act on this impulse just...I don't know, that I miss it being there. It was kind of fun, ya know? That risk - that maybe something might happen that's outside of our control. You know what I mean?"

"I don't. That's almost never what does it for me." He smiled at her. "I'm sorry, but it can hardly be a surprise that I'm not wired that way at this point."

"It's fine. I just miss it a little sometimes. That's all. It's not like we can change it." She leaned forward to kiss him and leave the subject. "Really. I'm happy with what we've got. Mostly."

"Mostly?" He sounded a little hurt and his brow furrowed, eyes thoughtful. "Hold on." He sat up on his forearm, worried. "Are you bored...with how we...how I..." He made a vague gesture with his hand and trailed off.

"Fleischman, no. It's fine. It's great. Really. It is. I have no complaints. It's just one of those things that happens to people, relationships. It's not going to be like it was at the start forever. We are fine."

"You've said 'fine' at least five times in the last two minutes." He squinted at her, thinking again. There was something familiar about the look in his eyes but she couldn't quite identify it.

"What? I promise, I'm fine." She sight at his exasperated look in response to the word. "I meant, I'm not mad."

"You wore that on purpose tonight..."

"So? I like it. It's soft. Comfortable."

"It is not - you always change out of it because it's silk and sweltering to wear. That thing has a very specific trajectory, from your body to my eyes to the bedroom floor. You wear it because you look exceptionally good in it and know I'll..." He paused, thinking. "And you haven't worn it in weeks, either." He nodded to himself, as if suddenly realizing something. "And I haven't noticed that until right now. And sex is suddenly boring for you."

"I never said bor-"

"So you miss the chance of getting caught? And it's gotta be the risk part more than some exhibitionist tendency of yours that you like right? Because, deep down, you are the quintessential rule follower and observer of propriety and decorum." She knew the look now. It was the same one he got when he was doing a crossword or mulling over some patient diagnosis issue he hadn't quite put together the pieces of. He was making notes in his mind, studying her, deciphering her - solving her. Then she saw the light suddenly go on in his eyes.

"Fleischman...what?"

He wagged his index at her nodding thoughtfully. "You're a risk taker. An adrenaline junkie. Anti-convention. It's why you moved here. Why you fly. It's why Shelly's purple sparkly book of teenage nonsense said we were a tough match long term. You get off on not knowing what's coming next and get frustrated because you think I'm so predictable. We start off great but...you want keep wanting surprises and variety and risk and danger -"

"You're not frustrating. You're not boring. I mean, you are, but you're not in bed. We have great sex. Still. Really. I promise. And why do you remember all of this from that stupid astrology book?"

"Just because you pretended you didn't read the page about sex doesn't mean I will. I'm too predictable, huh?" He paused for a few seconds, still thinking, before grinning at her in an illicit way that made her heart race a little. He rolled over and got up to open her closet door. He continued talking to her as he dug around inside. "I can't believe you're bored already, six months in."

"Get out of my closet. What are you doing in there anyway? Come on. It's late. Let's go to bed. It is fine. We are fine. I am fine."

"I'm more than happy to indulge you in this." He returned from his closet and pushed her gently down on her back, climbing over her, bracing himself with one arm, the other still behind his back. "Every once in awhile. You just have to tell me you feel this way, you know. And be patient because this really isn't my area of expertise." He kissed her and she saw that same glint in his eyes - a hint of something that made her heart rate jump. "Close your eyes."

"*Close my eyes*?! Are you crazy? Why?"

"You don't trust me?"

"Right now? Not really."

"Come on, O'Connell."

"I will do no such thing. Not until you tell me what you..."

He reached down and pulled her red nightgown off in one quick motion, knees settling on either side of her hips. He kissed her again as he caught her hand with his. He put his palm to hers and their fingers laced together as he pulled it slowly above her head.

He ended their kiss and pulled back to look into her eyes. "Close 'em," he said, more forcefully than before.

Something about the look in his eyes and his tone sent a fevered little jolt thought her, and she closed her eyes. "Okay, okay. You're lucky I don't hit you for telling me what to do, you know. What are you doing anyway?"

She felt something soft snake around the wrist of the hand he held, before he let go and pulled her other hand over her head onto her pillow.

Her eyes shot open again. "Fleischman, what the hell are you doing?"

"Tying you up." He said it as calmly, like it was the most mundane thing in the world, but grinned at her again, his dimple showing, as he moved higher to secure her other arm to her headboard before tossing his shirt on the floor with her nightgown.

"You're *what*?!" she asked, when she regained her ability to speak. She tried to pull her hands down but he'd tied whatever it was around too well for her to move them far. She felt that same jolt again as she watched him, silently shocked at how casually he'd done this, as she tried to free her hands again. It only made the fabric around her wrists cinch tighter. He watched her struggle, and that tinge she'd felt seeing that look in his eyes grew stronger. 

"You want unpredictable? You got it. And don't pull so hard, honey, that kind of knot will tighten the more you do, and you're going to tear up your wrists." He crawled back above her and leaned down to kiss the inside of her right wrist, his tongue lingering on her pulse point. "Plus. I like these ties. I don't want them ripped."

"Don't you dare 'honey' me, Fleischman. I'm tied to to my own bed with your ties?! You cannot possibly be serious. Take these off." Even she didn't believe herself, her voice enervated and a smile she was having trouble concealing. "Right now." 

"No." He kissed her throat and drew his fingertips gently up her left side. Her heart raced a little faster as she willed herself to get control again. "You don't want me to anyway," he said, lips moving against her skin as he continued down the center of her chest. "I know what you want."

"Like hell you do! Do you think we're going to have sex with my hands tied above my head?"

"Eventually, yeah. I'm going to have a little fun with you first. Prove to you I can be unpredictable sometimes if I need to be. Indulge this need you have for risky behavior." He moved above her again, dark eyes shining. "I will do whatever I have to to permanently banish the word 'fine' from your working vocabulary."

"Joel..." She stopped, correcting herself. "Fleischman...I didn't say I was bored. And you... you are not a handcuffs kind of guy. I know you're not."

"You're right - I'm not." He kissed her again, his lips hard against hers, fingers wound through her hair, pulling her head back so her chin tilted up. "But you are, Maggie. And these aren't handcuffs. And I'm pretty sure this is going to be a lot of fun..."


	21. The Twenty-First

September 27, 1994

Pain shot through Maggie's arm and shoulder, waking her from the half-sleep that had finally, blessedly come somewhere late in the night. She took a slow breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to fix her mind on anything else. 

She felt warmer than last time she'd woken, at least. The unexpected cold snap, she'd thought, would be the bad luck that would define her short birthday camping trip. Until she'd fallen.

The cold had caused her to wait until midday to hike to the top of the peak. It had been a great climb, her breath visible in little vapor clouds that froze with each puff as she went. The view was spectacular and the mountain itself was dusted at the peak with light snow, the first she'd seen this season.

That dusting of crisp, white snow was scattered across a flat area she'd begun to traverse on her descent. With her first step, she realized that the ground wasn't dirt but a large flat expanse of rock. With her second step, she'd slipped. She'd instinctively thrust her arm down to catch herself and had been met with blinding pain in her shoulder and forearm. It was unyielding and so bad she'd had to move incredibly slowly and stop and rest six times on her hike back down - something that should have taken an hour which ended up taking five. Even then, she'd only gone as 'fast' as she had out of an awareness of the sun, soon to set. The only thing worse than the pain in her left arm would have been dealing with it while unable to find her tent in the dark. She'd found her campsite just at sunset.

She'd wanted to fly out immediately, head for Juneau and the medical attention she quite obviously needed. She knew she shouldn't fly in the dark, though, and was having trouble doing anything other than closing her eyes, trying to force sleep to come and cut through the pain.

Flesichman would be self-righteously pissed to get wind of any of this, she thought to herself, not that she wouldn't give her throbbing left arm for him to have come with her, now in hindsight. She had actually asked him along, knowing his answer would always be no to a camping trip - even a celebratory birthday one, like this. She'd been not-so-secretly glad to get his no, since she wasn't all that excited to babysit him again in the great outdoors. After breakfast, she'd worked on finishing packing as he watched her warily.

"You're not going to go up there and clog up the river with letters detailing all the ways I piss you off, are you? Tell me that's not the point of this trip."

"I'm just camping and hiking one more time before it gets too cold. And I think I'm pretty open with you about all the things you do that I hate, Fleischman. Plus, you're not dead. Amazingly, since we've been at this for so long. Let's see, where did I stick those extra...hmmmm..." She rifled through the outer zippers of her bag, while he hovered worriedly behind her.

"An extra canteen of water and a gun? That's your big backup plan in case something goes wrong? What if there's...there's..." He paused, trying to think of something, some lurking danger she should be ready for.

"There's what?"

"An earthquake?"

"An earthquake," she said, rolling her eyes. "What are you worried about that doing to me, if I'm in the middle of a big field? Knocking over my canteen?" She turned to finish packing, as Joel's worrying gained steam and specificity behind her.

"Fine, then, an animal attack?" She patted her shotgun again with one hand in response, zipping her backpack closed with her other. "Okay. But what it sneaks up on you from behind?"

"They're moose, Fleischman, not pickpockets." She stood up and looked at him, his face earnest and concerned. She felt a flash of fondness, despite her irritation. She leaned forward and squeezed his shoulder. "I'll be just fine. You'll feed my fish, right?"

"Can't you leave me a map of where you'll be? Something?"

"Fleischman, I've been camping alone..." She tried to think back, calculate how many, "...well, more times than I can count, that's for sure. I've never had a problem before, and I doubt I will this time. I appreciate your well-meaning concern. I do, no matter how incredibly sexist or ill-informed it is." 

She turned to grab her pack's top handle when she felt his chest against her back, his arms around her, fingers at her waistband. He plucked open the button on her pants and opened them, sliding his right hand down the front right side.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

His lips were against her ear. "This?" He traced down the scar running across the skin just above her right hipbone. "Right here? This is an example of something a gun won't protect you from. I think you know what would have happened with this if Ed and I hadn't known where you were. I know you can take care of yourself; I'm not questioning that. But I love you...at least tell me where you'll be. Please."

So she'd left him with a map. A map and a long, lingering kiss on her doorstep, in exchange for his promise to feed her new fish - a portly, ornately finned tetra they'd taken one look at and named Maurice. 

Curled in the tent in the cold now, laying on her side with her good arm beneath her, she could just see the smug, knowing "I told you so" in Joel's dark, expressive eyes. And his worry. She inhaled sharply as a new pang of pain shot through her left shoulder, her strangled breath an audible gasp.

She squeezed her eyes shut more tightly, moving to lay flat on her back, which caused the pain to diminish a little bit, at least in her shoulder. "Fuck." She muttered under her breath, lacking anything but the most juvenile of ways to express her pain and frustration, at this point. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!"

"O'Connell, that you?" Slurred, tired words floated into her ear from quite nearby and she reached across her with her good hand to feel to Joel's, finding it quickly and squeezing it hard. "S'wrong?" A half-second passed before she felt him sit up quickly. "Where the hell are we?"

"Tent. Fleischman. My arm hurts." She let out a strangled-sounding breath. "You wouldn't happen to have any pain meds on you, would you?"

"Your arm?" Joel started feeling around the area within his reach. "A tent? Is this your camping trip?" His hands fell upon a cylinder he knew to be a flashlight and turned it on, dim light flooding the tent. "How am I here? Oh, God, O'Connell." He propped the flashlight up to provide light and brought his hand to her forehead. "What is it?"

"I fell. My arm's killing me." She winced hard again, and he moved closer.

"Point to where." Her right hand touched her forearm and then shoulder, leaving her hand on her chest. "More up here than down there, though." Her eyes squeezed hard again.

"Okay. I need to...I'll be as gentle as I can, okay? Tell me what happened." As she did, he carefully touched her arm, feeling his way as her eyes finally opened. His eyes were trained on his hands, industrious and concerned.

"...and when I finally got back here, I was so exhausted I just came in here and collapsed. It hurt too much to sleep any, though. And I can't fly at night."

"No," he said mildly, obviously only half-listening, his eyes darting up and down her forearm. "You managed to both dislocate and break your arm. What hurts is the dislocation and your forearm being unsupported. And swollen. I need to get your shoulder back in place and then splint your arm, okay? I'm not gonna lie - it's going to hurt really bad but then feel a lot better. At least your shoulder." For the first time since he'd woken, his eyes met hers. He looked upset. 

"Is that all that's wrong with me? You look worried."

He blinked twice, his face sobering. "I'm fine. And you will be, too, I promise. Once I get you put mostly back together." He gave her a gentle but wavering smile.

He was right, too. It hurt for a few seconds, but as soon as he'd popped her shoulder joint back together, the searing constant pain subsided. All that remained was a dull ache in her swollen forearm, which diminished considerably when he put it into a makeshift sling, splinted with a torn shirt of hers and sticks he'd unhesitatingly retrieved in near darkness from the nearby woods - something he'd weakly joked was not part of the standard curriculum at Columbia.

He'd patiently packed her campsite for her, too, making her sit by her plane, dutifully following her every instruction, feet freezing - she realized only later - in just the thick socks he'd worn to bed. He loaded the plane and even helped her with buttons and levers she couldn't push one-handed as she'd maneuvered her plane up and out of the field, hours later. 

He'd told her to head for Juneau, not Cicely, which surprised her. "You can't set my arm? I thought you had an x-ray in your office. You've set broken bones lots of times. I trust you. Mostly."

"Yeah, well, not yours."

"So what if it's mine? You're my doctor."

Joel looked uncomfortable. "O'Connell, I can't exactly...look, this isn't the best time for a conversation on medical ethics. The right answer is Juneau, okay? Trust me."

He'd said not one word about the turbulence or the harder-than-average landing they'd had, even while maintaining his usual tight grip on the ceiling handle. He'd kept his other hand on her right knee through most of the flight.

When she finally met the orthopedic physician, she'd asked if he'd talked to her doctor. 

"No. I thought you were injured camping and came straight here."

"I did, but my doctor was with me. He's the one who splinted my arm. He's back at the desk filling out paperwork for me."

"Your boyfriend?"

"Er, yes. He's also a doctor, though."

"I see." He paused. "Is it okay for him to be back here with you while you're being seen?"

"Yeah. Of course."

"We always ask with non-family. I'll go tell the nurse to let him back. Are you comfortable for the moment?"

"I'm fine, thanks." Non-family. She felt herself frown, bristling at the doctor's dismissive term for Joel. It seemed jarring and inaccurate; he wasn't family, of course, but he certainly wasn't not her family either. She found herself still pondering the distinction as Joel came in.

When he appeared, he gave her that same wavering smile and sat in the guest chair beside the exam table. She prepared herself to be embarrassed of his zealous need to extoll his credentials and participate in her care. Instead, she and was surprised at how uncharacteristically deferential to the staff he was, even when she saw him not want to be.

Later, when everything was stable and she was waiting on a cast, he'd left to call Marilyn and buy shoes and clothes. The friendly young orthopedic technician had started wrapping her arm while they made small talk. He apologized for what a long and boring process this would be. Maggie still couldn't believe Joel's strange abdication of medical responsibility. "I can't believe he wouldn't do this himself."

"The guy you're with? What's he, a doctor or something?"

"Yeah. A good one. He does this stuff all the time, too."

"You guys serious?"

It wasn't really this guy's business, but Joel wasn't in the room and she didn't bother with her usual deflections. "Yeah. We are."

"Well, that's why, then. There's lots of rules around that stuff. It's a violation of the AMA's ethical code, spouses as patients. Clouds your judgment."

"We're not married, though."

"Maybe he feels like things are close enough to be a problem for him." He shrugged and then smiled conspiratorily. "In a way, it's probably good news - might mean he's close to proposing." He winked at her.

Later, with discharge instructions tucked into her sling with her cast, she exited to the waiting room and saw him bent forward, his face in his hands, apparently exhausted. She realized only then he'd not once said he 'told her so' about camping.

"Hey," she put her hand to his shoulder. "I'm all done. You ready?" He sat up, eyes lingering a second on her casted arm in its sling before meeting hers. He wasn't exhausted - he looked shaken still, but was trying hard not to. Over a broken arm. All at once, she knew why the doctor's term had been so jarring. He was her family. All the times when she'd told him forever, she'd meant it, but for the first time, she felt what forever meant. It wasn't just about time, staying together unceasingly. Forever cascaded out in every possible direction between them. She suddenly heard herself blurt out the words, "We should move in together."

"What?" He looked up at her, genuinely perplexed.

His quizzical look made her feel conspicuous in her raw, emotional reponse, so she tried to pivot to discussing simple practicalities. "I've...I mean, I've been thinking. We keep waking up together...and I love you and...well, it makes some sense, if you think about it and...I mean, the car situation is...and anyway don't you want, I mean, wouldn't you...you know...that way we could...what?"

He gave her a lopsided grin. "What'd they give you back there for pain, O'Connell?"

She pulled him to his feet with her good hand and kissed him. "Those aren't your shoes."

"They are now. And my jeans. And my shirt. If we keep this up, my entire wardrobe will be things one of us bought so I didn't have to walk around in Juneau in my night clothes." He paused, hesitating before asking quietly, "You really want me to move in with you?"

"No. I said 'move in together'."

"Into my place then?"

She shook her head. "I think we should buy a place. Together. You know, so it's ours..." she trailed off, looking at his face. "You don't want to."

He grinned again. "Yes I do. There's just no way you're of sound mind and asking me this, though. Morphine? Percocet? Vicodin?"

She glared at him. "Ibuprofen. I'm also sober enough to get pissed off pretty easily with the right trigger."

He held his hands up defensively. "Okay, okay. You want to buy a place, huh? What's wrong with your place? My place?"

"Nothing. I love that house. And I love yours, too - how quiet it is and with that lake view. But I'd like one that's ours. Ya know?"

"Ours? You're serious, aren't you? You mean it."

She nodded in response and watched a smile take over his whole face. He took her good hand and held it as they walked out together.

"O'Connell?"

"Yeah?"

"Happy early birthday. In the future, why don't you let me get you something that isn't emergency medical attention."


	22. The Twenty-Second

October 27, 1994

"I know you're going to tell me you were right." 

Without opening his eyes, Joel kissed the back of Maggie's head through her hair, his arm already around her upon waking. "Every day of my life," he murmured. "I'm glad you've finally acquiesced to it. Particularly as we'll be starting and ending those days together for the foreseeable future starting Saturday."

"I can - and will - still kick you out after we move in together, you know."

"You can't with my name on the deed."

"Watch me."

He chuckled. "Absolutely none of this changes the fact that I was right..."

\-----

He'd finally figured it out by accident, alone in his office on a Wednesday morning, long after having given up on there being some rhyme or reason to any of this. He was filing Maggie's fracture records, finally faxed from Juneau, when he'd happened to notice the date of their hospital visit. What made him remember that his other unscheduled visit to Juneau had been on the same day of the month he didn't know, but the coincidence caused him to start flipping through his personal desk calendar. 

Each month that he'd think back to a chance morning meeting of theirs, he'd prove himself more right, and he'd turn through the pages faster. August 27th. April 27th. February 27th. He went all the way back to when he remembered it had happened that first time, and it was another 27th, almost two years ago now. From there, he worked his way forward in time, sequentially checking the dates a second time - no such date had gone by without an unexplained encounter. That was it - the 27th of each month. But why? He leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling, pen in his mouth, thinking, trying to come up with something that would make it make sense.

Marilyn came in quietly enough he didn't notice her at first. "Boxes," she said, the soft word finally penetrating his silent reflection.

He looked down, levelling his eyes at her, pen still in his mouth. He watched her a moment before mumbling, "Marilyn, does the number 27 mean anything to you?"

"There's only 3."

"Huh?"

"Boxes." She gestured to the stack of flattened brown cardboard now leaning against his office wall. "For moving."

"Oh thanks. But 27. Ring any bells?"

"No."

He waited for her to ask why, but thay wasn't her way. What was her way, of course, was staring placidly back at him until the expanding silence finally compelled him to speak again and offer up an explanation.

"Marilyn..." He kicked his feet down from his desk and stood to walk around to stand nearer to her, his voice quieter. "I'm going to say something to you that's going to sound strange." She looked nonplussed so he continued. 

"Okay. I really can't explain this, but O'Connell and I sometimes..." He trailed off, looking at Marilyn, unable to finish the sentence. No matter how real this was to him - and to Maggie - explaining it to someone with a straight face wasn't something he really knew how to do. "Nevermind. Do I have any more appointments today?"

"2:30." Marilyn paused again, her unbroken silence and stare something he still hadn't gotten used to and probably never would. "I have something."

She turned and left the room, leaving him to wonder if she'd just been announcing her departure or warning him of a change in topic. Or neither. He waited 30 seconds before she returned with what looked like a stack of fabric in her arms she held out in presentation.

"Oh. Um. Okay. What's that?"

"It's for you and Maggie."

Joel felt himself blush. "For both of us?" He took the item from her outstretched arms. "Thanks, Marilyn. I'm still not sure I know..."

"It's a chilkat blanket." She paused again. "Present."

"Marilyn..." Joel started, unfolding the blanket with its intricate, woven design. "Did you make this?"

"I helped. My mom and some of the other women in the tribe did, too."

"Well, it's really..." He studied the intricate woven pattern in the corner he'd folded up, moving the fabric carefully between his thumb and forefinger, studying the woven fabric. "Wow, Marilyn...this is...really nice. Really. Too nice. I mean, thanks. I'm sure she'll love it too." He folded it closed again gently. "You really didn't have to get us anything. We're just moving in together."

"She won't get married." She turned, opening his filing cabinet and rifling through to find a place for the file in her hand. 

Joel smiled wryly. "No. She won't." He paused again, wondering, as he usually did, if there was more coming on this topic. "Was that a question?"

"I know that you want to and she won't. So it's a wedding gift." She gave him a rare smile.

He smiled back before putting the blanket gently into his cabinet. He walked to his office door, putting his hand on her shoulder as he passed. "Thanks, Marilyn."

The front door opened just as Joel emerged from his office.

"Hey, Fleischman." 

"Hey, yourself. How's your arm?"

"Fine. Cast is itchy. As always." Her eyes fell on Marilyn's empty desk and brightened. "Marilyn's not at her desk?"

"Wow. Your powers of deductive reasoning are second to none, O'Connell. You know that?"

She glared at him playfully, putting her arms to his waist, pulling herself close. "Keep that up and you'll never benefit from where that line of thinking was headed. Since she's not here, I thought maybe we could take advantage of our being suddenly alone..." She leaned in and kissed him as he opened his mouth to correct her.

They'd been at this for months, the better part of a year, really, this relationship of theirs. And despite her intermittent fears that things felt too settled, too predictable, he never had those worries. She still scared the shit out of him at just about every turn, prompting him to do irrational things without thinking. There was just something about how she looked at him, kissed him, when she was in one of her moods. Like right now. Whatever it was knocked him off-kilter and made him momentarily lose touch with reality, drop everything, and respond earnestly in kind. Which was how, despite his honest and best intentions, he ended up completely forgetting about Marilyn and pulling Maggie backwards with him towards his office.

"Can we at least try not to knock everything off my desk this time," he said, kissing her below her ear.

"Oh, God forbid your Golf Digests hit the ground." She whispered into his ear, her voice falsely innocent, "Maybe you should keep them in your top drawer with your extensive collection of Penthouse magazines."

He pulled back this time, indignant. "When and why did you go through my private desk drawers? And anyway, those aren't mine. They're for patients."

"Sure they are, Fleischman." She smirked at him, busily undoing his tie and collar, her left fingers struggling, bound in by her cast. "Are you gonna help me here, or not?"

His hands moved to her waist, untucking her shirt, still irritated. "Why would I need Penthouse when I'm sleeping with a nymphomaniac?"

"I am *not* a -"

"I'm going to lunch," a quiet voice startled them both. At which point, he finally remembered Marilyn.

"Flesichman! You said she wasn't here!" Maggie's hands dropped from Joel's collar, but she stayed close, holding the ends of his undone tie, a faint blush creeping across her cheeks and down the middle of her neck.

"No, you *assumed* she wasn't here and then stuck your tongue down my throat before I could correct you!"

"Like you're some paradigm of self control yourself. You had a pretty tight grip on me, your lips were against my throat, and you steered us through this door the second you got your hands on me."

"Because you've yelled at me for not going quickly enough before! You're literally the only woman on earth for whom speed is a virtue in this context, I hope you realize."

"Speed getting us started is a virtue, not speed...during."

"Well, that's not a problem I have..."

"True. One of your few good points..."

Marilyn walked past them, smirking as they argued, reached for her coat slung across the back of her chair, and headed for the door. "I'll be back at 2. Bye Maggie."

"Sorry, Marilyn," Joel mumbled as she left before leaning back to call after her into the waiting room. "Wait. Hold on. Marilyn...it's only 11:30. Except not even quite that yet. You only get an hour for lunch. Well. I mean, as per your official employment agreement, you actually only *get* a half hour, but even then, you still only usually *take* an hour. Which means coming back at 2:00 is way too..."

His protest was met with the gentle chime of the bell on his door as the door closed behind her.

"I give up. You know, this is yet another argument about the sex we started having in front of poor Marilyn." He turned his attention back to Maggie, looking chagrined, before smiling again. "Oh! I just remembered. I figured something out."

"That you're drowning in a sea of decisive women who are all smarter than you and have you entirely under their thumbs? And you deserve it?" Her arms tightened around his shoulders, drawing him closer.

"We're going wake up together tomorrow."

"No, we won't. We agreed we'd take this last week apart, since I'm never going to be able to get away from you starting Saturday." She used her toe to kick the door shut behind her. "But. That separation, I'm realizing, has a downside. You do have a certain charm. Allure. Utility might be the best word. Which is why I'm here right now. And why you didn't fight terribly hard against Marilyn's long lunch."

"Don't change the subject. We will wake up together tomorrow morning. What do you want to bet that I'm right?"

"Fleischman. I don't want to play whatever game this is. Shut up and kiss me. I have a charter this afternoon, and since subltelty is lost on you, I came here to have sex. With you." She pointed over his shoulder at his desk. "Right there. But I don't have endless time for it."

"You're such a romantic, sweetie." He walked backwards towards his desk, sitting on its edge and still talking with Maggie as he dutifully worked the buttons of her shirt open. "Look, I'm right about this. And I want you to acknowledge that or accept this bet."

"Right about what? If you're implying you'll somehow charm your way into dinner tonight and everything that follows, you're wrong. I have to pack. I have a lifetime's worth of stuff I've accumulated, not two duffel bags' worth of virtually identical button-down shirts and five VHS movies that somehow all center on New York City cab drivers. You are _not_ coming over tonight. So unless tomorrow is one of those fluke days..."

"It will be. That's what I'm telling you. I'm not angling for a night in with you - I figured it out. The pattern." He leaned forward, kissing along her collarbone, as he worked on his own shirt buttons. 

"Like hell you did."

"Did you lock my door?"

Closing her eyes against the sensation of his lips against her, she fumbled blindly to start in at the bottom button on his shirt. "No. We'll just hope no one shows up."

"The one of us for whom getting caught is not a turn on will...and I did figure it out. I'll prove it when we wake up together. At which point you'll owe me. So what do you want to wager?"

"Fine. You want a bet - if you're wrong, you have to..." Maggie paused, her mind struggling at the moment to think about making Joel unhappy. "I don't know...fly up to the peaks with me. Without whining. For a weekend. Of camping. And hiking."

"Whatever you want. Make it every weekend next summer. Because it won't happen. And *when* we wake up together, I get first pick on drawer space."

"Whatever will shut you up." She shoved him backwards onto his desk, his head lightly hitting the desk as he landed. He winced exaggeratedly as she crawled on top of the desk above him. "Don't make me hurt you again."

"Top two drawers in the dresser are mine. Once we move in."

"No they aren't. I'm not putting that up to be lost. I doubt you're even tall enough to see into the top drawers."

His eyes narrowed at her as his hands slid down her sides to hook into the top of her pants. "I'm taller than you."

"Barely. That boring bet of yours pretty well proves you know you're going to lose. Because if you knew you'd win, I think you'd want to ask for something more...fun."

"Fine. You have to say three nice things about me. To me. And mean them."

"Have you ever gambled before, Fleischman? Do you understand what constitutes a decent wager?"

"You're half naked on top of me on my desk. I quite literally wouldn't know what else to ask for. You're everything I want, Maggie." He kissed her and smiled as she pulled back to look at him. "Always have been."

\-----

"A bet's a bet. And I won. Fair and square. You aren't even curious about what the pattern is?"

"I'm nowhere near convinced this wasn't just a lucky guess." Maggie turned in Joel's arms to face him. "Fine. Tell me what we do that causes this."

"That I don't know."

"Why my place over yours today?"

"I...uh...I don't know that either."

"If it's a pattern, surely you'd be able to say."

"It is a pattern - a very specific one. The 27th of each month. That's the pattern. I checked. And checked again. Every one, without fail. All the way back to January of 1993."

Maggie looked thoughtful and Joel was certain she was using the silence to check to see if she could prove him wrong. Unable to, she continued her questioning. "So why then? What started it?"

"I'm not sure."

"Okay, well, why the 27th?"

"I have no idea about that either. Does that day mean anything to you? That number?"

"No."

"Me neither."

"It sure seems like you figured out nothing. You don't know how. You don't know why. You don't know what started it. You don't know where it'll be. Or who it'll happen to?"

"I know when, though. I was right about today. And I'll be right next month, too."

A nervous smile fell over Maggie's face. "Maybe not. I, uh...we're not going to be here then."

Joel gave her a half smile. "Hey, I've got my doubts about this new living arrangement, too, sweetie, but I think we'll at least make it a month before we kill each other."

"Don't call me that. No. I, uh... Well. We'll be in Michigan. Is the thing. On November 27th."

His smile wavered. "What?"

"Grosse Pointe. It's, uh, Thanksgiving that weekend, and I promised my mom and Jeffie I'd, well, *we* would...and I bought us tickets already. First class." She paused to see if that alone had sold it, before realizing she had a long way to go. "Look, my mother refuses to accept my going alone because apparently living together is somehow a sign that we're serious. To some people." 

"Of course it is..." Joel looked uncomfortable. "Your mom knows we're going to live together? Your dad said she was not a big fan of cohabitation..."

"Yeah, but she'll be fine. Eventually." Joel's dubious and disappointed look made Maggie double down on perky salesmanship. "Grammy will be there. She liked you. A lot."

"We talked for 3 minutes in a bathroom while I nursed a scotch after you two had had...well, several of them. Each. She'd like anyone a lot under those circumstances."

"Nah, she really liked you. She still asks about you."

"She feels bad for me, O'Connell. Our conversation started with me being the only Jew she's met not via television and ended with her telling me to be patient and just try to wait out the Mike thing until you came to your senses."

"What? She did not say that!"

"She absolutely did. She pulled the same thing on your grandfather when your mom was little, too. Crazy runs in your family. Apparently. Especially amongst the women..." 

"Grammy did that?" Maggie sounded affectionately proud of her. "Huh. Good for her."

"I'm not sure that's really a laudable attribute, O'Connell." He sighed. "*My* mom's going to be furious when she finds out about this. I told her I wasn't going anywhere. Because I thought we weren't. You know, I'd like to have seen my family, too. Or go somewhere of my choosing, for once. Since I moved to Alaska, I've only ever left the state to go to Seattle and Grosse Pointe. Twice now."

"I don't want to do this, either, Fleischman. I'm sure you know that. My brother's pissed off I haven't met his wife..."

"Stephie Number Two?"

"Nicole. Who is pregnant. So I'm about to be an aunt. And Mom wants me to come home so I can see again all I'm missing by not staying there and marrying..."

"...Jed?" Joel looked even more uncomfortable.

A hint of guilt passed through Maggie's eyes. "I was going to say marrying *rich*." She paused before realizing that wasn't going to make him any happier. "Not rich but...conventionally." Another pause. "Not that you aren't...look, you know what I mean."

"Uh huh. You explain your matrimonial phobia to her, too?" Her glare was plenty enough indication that he'd better change tone. "Fine. You know I'll do it." He sounded less sullen than he felt.

The smile her face broke into almost made the surprises of the last few minutes worthwhile. "I owe you one, Fleischman."

"Several, actually."

"We can visit your parents for Christmas."

"They'll love that. Big holiday in our house."

"Hannukah then."

"That's not a really a ...nevermind." Joel nudged Maggie onto her back and moved above her. "Look, I will go with you. I will go, I will smile, I will be polite, I will be the wonderful doting boyfriend you won't let me be in real life. And I will do it for two reasons. Because, crazy or not, I love you, O'Connell. And I will brave the lunacy that is your family because I can't in good conscience let you do that alone, having seen it first hand."

"And? What's your other reason?"

His eyes crinkled at the corners and he smiled more. "Because you deserve a guy like that. Your family needs to see that about you. And maybe you do, too." They rarely spoke seriously, so he moved quickly back to banter - their comfort zone. "And I know if you go home, Jed will turn up..."

"...and you want to defend your territory."

"Exactly. Plus, I like you being indebted to me."

"Speaking of which..." her tone was suddenly gentle and conciliatory, as her hand moved to ruffle his hair. "Quote me on any of this, and I will deny it entirely. Three things, right?"

"Huh?"

She took a deep breath. "One. Your eyes."

"What about them?"

"You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. It's the first thing I noticed about you, standing in that cabin, the day we met, showing you how to light a fire. I'd never gone weak in the knees over a guy's eyes like that before. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, hoping you didn't notice. And you still manage to do it to me sometimes..."

"Wait, is this you paying off that bet? That's why you're saying...you *mean* this, don't you?"

"Two - and this one you have to forget immediately and never repeat it or I'll strangle you because you'll be insufferable. But. You are the smartest person I've ever met. Far and away. My biggest fear is that you'll realize someday how I just barely keep up."

"O'Connell..."

"Three. You are the one thing in my life I know I can always count on. And I love you for it - more than I can ever say." She smiled self-consciously at him before rolling over and hopping out of bed. "And my debt is now paid. But I'll make ya breakfast, too, Fleischman. For figuring out the thing about the 27th..."

"And the drawers?"

She'd already left the room and shouted back, "not gonna happen, Fleischman..."


	23. The Twenty-Third

November 27, 1994

Maggie's parents had kept her bedroom just as it always had been. For awhile, it was an irritation to her - a constant indication that they thought whatever her current plan was - college, Paris, law school, Alaska - was some passing phase on the path to ultimate failure and her return home. Once she'd felt she'd found her way with Cicely and flying, the sameness of her room irritated her anew, as if her parents were trying to hold onto her as she was before - before she'd changed course and let them down by not growing up into who they wanted her to be. Now, though, and especially this weekend, it felt comforting to be surrounded by familiar things and her memories of growing up. 

This was her second visit home after her parents' divorce, and her first since her dad had remarried. She felt his absence finally on this visit and for the first time in her life a wistfulness for her childhood.

As the bright midmorning light filtered into her room, she realized how late it must already be to her poor jetlagged body. She opened one eye to check the time - 9:45 already - and then surveyed her room again, soaking up its familiarity one last time before she and Joel left for Alaska in the mid afternoon. 

Every bit of wall and woodwork was still lavender - she'd fought so hard for that color at 11, only to hate it during her bleaker and more sullen teenage years. Her sash from her Little Miss pageant was strung artfully across the tennis and swimming trophies still displayed on her bookshelf, dusted each week by her mother's housekeeper. Some of her room's artifacts were of a newer vintage - her 1L books, for example, still sat lined up on her desk, their uniform black and red bindings portending the seriousness of their subject matter - contracts, real property, criminal procedure. Almost a decade now had gone by since she'd committed their contents to memory. Most items, though, were from childhood - even her old heartthrob posters were still tacked up in their original places on the walls - Joel had teased her about some of her crushes until she started reciting some of his.

As soon as she thought of Joel, she became aware of him lying near her, his palm pressed gently against her middle back. She was, at first, glad for his closeness - being home had made her keep him at arm's length all week - before remembering the house rule.

"Hey!" She whispered, after rolling over to face him. "I told you, my mother has an absolute zero tolerance policy for this. Why are you in here?"

"Morning, sweetie." He opened one eye to meet hers, knowing his use of that term would garner him a glare. He smiled when she paid him off and opened his other eye. "I was right again, you know."

"Shhhh! What, about the 27th thing?"

"Yes, which is why I'm in here, I think," he said in an exaggerated whisper. "Why are we talking so quietly?"

"Because you really shouldn't be in here."

"O'Connell. I'm hardly on the verge of making a move in your childhood bedroom. And anyway, your brother is in bed with someone."

"With his wife. Whom he knocked up within the confines of holy matrimony, the way God and my mother intended. And he doesn't have a track record like I do. For all I know, that baby constitutes his first time."

"I really hope not, for his sake..." He looked her curiously. "Track record? Oh, at breaking this rule..." She watched him debate whether to ask what she knew was on the tip of his tongue, so she decided to beat him to it.

"15."

"What?"

"I was 15 my first time. Since you were going to ask. Not that you're entitled to this information." Joel processed this, eyes thoughtful while Maggie watched him, unable to decipher the look on his face. "What?"

"Nothing. Just explains a lot. You were way too young."

Her jaw dropped indignantly and she sat up to look down at him. "Says who? You?"

He sat halfway up to look at her. "*Were* you too young?"

"No." She felt her chin tilt up defiantly, feeling childish despite her every intention to try to make _him_ feel that way for having weighed in with his opinion. Feeling the balance of power shift, she tried to turn the question back on him. "Let me guess, you were the perfect age. How old were you?" 

"We could have benefitted from waiting a little, too. In retrospect..." He paused a moment. "And 20."

"20? I thought you and Elaine were together..."

"...for a long, long time before we..." 

"Well, this is all very prudishly judgmental, coming someone who's done some exceptionally dirty things with me....what?"

He was looking at her, thinking, that familiar pensive look in his eyes. "Let me guess what happened..."

"Shhh! Keep your voice down. And I don't think this is really a game we need to play together..."

"He was older. Right?"

She pursed her lips, irritated. "19. Why?"

"Not someone you were dating?"

Lips still together, she shook her head. 

"But wanted to be?"

"I'm not going into this with you, Fleischman. To say it's none of your business would be the greatest understatement in the history of..."

"Nevermind." He laid back down on the bed, pulling her down to lay against his shoulder. "Point taken. And I'm certain I can fill in the blanks on this by myself. I'm really not passing judgment either, just trying to figure out..." He was quiet, not finishing his thought for a long while. "Your mom hates me."

Maggie turned her head up, resting her chin on his chest and hoping to catch his eyes, which were trained on the ceiling. "Really?" She was certain she'd been the only one to notice and was surprised he'd been able to read her mother so well. She tried to tell herself that it was much more likely his self-consciousness rearing its head, but his assessment was uncannily perceptive. "Why do you say that? I thought this weekend went pretty well."

"It's been fine, it's just..." He stroked her back with his fingers, eyes still on the ceiling. "...she thinks I'm...nevermind. And anyway, it's your fault. This is what you wanted."

"Finish your thought. She thinks you're what?"

\-----

Jane had always had high hopes for Joel, since Maggie's earliest mentions of him in her letters. Despite a string of embarrassingly unmotivated, unimpressive, and overall worthless boyfriends, she'd finally managed to find one of the only educated and upwardly mobile people likely to have ever set foot in that backwater she'd holed herself up in. And a doctor, on top of everything! 

When Frank had visited, he was able to confirm that not only did Joel exist but he seemed like an intelligent, good-natured person who had an obvious affection for their daughter. Granted, yes, it was the same daughter who had decided to continue dating the thickheaded part-time pilot who Frank had learned had moved in with her. The one who had taken to calling Jane "Mom." But there was hope. Joel's presence allowed her to continue to believe at some point Maggie would grow up and settle down into a normal life somewhere civilized. Marrying a doctor would be ideal, and even though New York hadn't ever been on anyone's radar, she was sure Maggie would adjust. She was as resilient as she was rebellious.

When Jane visited Cicely, Maggie went to great lengths to keep her far away from Joel. This had the opposite effect that Maggie had intended and simply solidified Jane's mental picture - the stronger her daughter's feelings, the more she kept them private, particularly from Jane. Despite this, she'd hoped for a chance encounter - it was a small town after all - because she wanted to finally have a visual to complete her mental picture of this man. But, of course there'd been the disruption of unfortunate fire. And the announcement of her divorce had effectively squelched any chance of her daughter sharing any further personal revelations, particularly about romance. 

Maggie brought Joel home with her a year or so after that. She'd brought other boyfriends home, but with Joel, Jane noticed, he seemed to be there more because she wanted him with her than that she was showing him off. Even though he was the only one worth showing off of the bunch. In person, Joel was all Frank had said, too - smart, personable, and obviously fondly protective of her daughter. Their relationship was strange though - Maggie and Joel outright contradicted each other - and themselves - several times when discussing their relationship during their abbreviated visit. And Jane's mother had said a completely different name had peppered her conversation with her granddaughter before reassuring Jane that Joel was obviously the one for Maggie, whether she realized it yet or not.

This spring, Maggie had confirmed passively and in passing that she and Joel were dating each other semi-seriously. Then a few weeks ago, she'd let it slip that they were buying a place and moving in together. Jane was elated. After the sobering end to her relationship with Frank, she'd grown less interested in the doctor side of Joel and more in the side that respected and cared for Maggie. And made her happy. Even over the phone, Jane could hear Maggie's voice change when she talked about Joel, and it was obvious she'd finally fallen in love.

Jane insisted, therefore, that Maggie bring him home with her again for Thanksgiving, now, almost five years since his name had first started appearing in her letters. Jane was surprised to find her daughter's left hand remained unadorned, a stark contrast to her obviously intensified relationship with the young doctor. 

Their interactions were still strange to observe. They argued but with an obvious familiarity and palpable closeness in a way that almost seemed flirtatious, if that weren't such a strange notion. Something was just not what Jane would have expected from a committed, romantic couple. Despite protracted conversations conducted only with their eyes, they didn't interact much, staying almost at arm's length. She'd catch them happily looking at each other like they were the only two people in the room, but she didn't see them so much as kiss one another. Maggie had also showed Joel to the second spare bedroom, rather than putting his things in her room, where she was staying. Jane started to fear she'd misread Joel's feelings. She knew she was right about her daughter's.

At one point, Jeffie's wife Nicole naively asked, "So have you two talked about marriage?" and Jane watched Maggie look uncomfortably at Joel, who focused his attention suddenly on the stem of his glass. The subject was hastily changed, but the topic left its shadow on the table's conversation for several minutes. She watched another conversation between them by eye after that and couldn't tell what either was thinking, only that both seemed unhappy.

As she turned the long weekend's observations over in her mind, Jane's empathy for Maggie warmed itself into anger with Joel. She knew her daughter's temper well enough to know what she'd be risking by interfering, but Jane decided to knock on the closed guest room door Sunday morning, regardless of that wrath. She couldn't in good conscience let Joel depart without at least telling him her daughter deserved more from him. Some kind of commitment. Or an honest statement that it wasn't ever coming. No answer came to her knock, and, when she'd opened the door to peek inside, his bed was empty and unmade.

She decided to talk instead to Maggie, to tell her to stand up for herself and demand more. Her hand raised to knock at Maggie's partially open door when she heard two quiet voices whispering. More from curiosity than nosiness, Jane peered through the small opening in Maggie's bedroom door to see her, head against Joel's shoulder, his arm around her, idly stroking his hand along her back as she traced her fingertips across his chest. For the first time all weekend, they looked like a couple. And a happy one, at that. She knew she shouldn't intrude like this but couldn't help herself.

"Finish your thought. She thinks you're what?"

"Well...not serious about you, that's for sure. At best. At worst, she thinks I'm using you. You've made me look like just another in a long line of terrible boyfriends of yours."

"I really doubt she thinks that. She knows we're living together. And I'm sure she knows whatever failures we have in the commitment department are mine and mine alone. As usual. I'm sufficiently flawed in her mind, where men are concerned. And everything else, really."

Jane felt a pang. She was critical of her daughter, of course, but proud of her. She'd held Maggie to a high standard her whole life because she'd known she was capable of much more than she managed to live up to sometimes. Yes, she criticized, but she was only trying to help.

"Well, thanks to your rule about no physical contact and no aggrandizing romantic displays, I think *I* appear to be the problem. Trust me. She hates me. She practically shoved you into Jed's arms yesterday." He rolled to face Maggie, and Jane could see his face better. Somehow he was grinning at Maggie, despite talking about an ex of hers. And her meddling. "Surely you told *him* about me, at least?"

"What, that we're together? He knows that. He knew it way back when he turned up in Cicely in the spring, too."

"That didn't stop him from proposing to you."

"It wasn't ever going to. He did it again yesterday, too." 

Joel made an irritated noise, rolling his eyes. "Of course he did...I can't stand that guy." Jane saw his face relax into a fond smile as he raised a finger and tucked her almost shoulder-length hair behind her ear and traced it along her jaw and to her lips, his smile growing. She kissed the tip of his finger as he continued. "You know that? And you don't help by flirting with him. You know he has a thing for you."

"You're just jealous."

"Of the guy who's twice proposed to the woman who would be my wife but gets jumpy every time I ask her the question? Hardly. Irritated, yes. Jealous, no. You always tell both of us no, but at least I know you're in love with me."

Jane's mouth opened in surprise. She was trying to remain inconspicuous, now conscious that she was well past the line over into eavesdropping. She was quickly reevaluating her assessment of their relationship - he seemed absolutely enamored of Maggie, lying there next to her. And they seemed happy and comfortable together, oddly enough while talking - arguing, really - about another man interfering in their relationship. 

"So because I won't hold hands with you, you think Mom hates you?"

"I know she does. I know because she liked me quite a bit last time we met. And for the first couple of hours when we got here this time. Since then, she's hardly said ten words to me. But she's watching me all the time and thinking. Watching _us_." He kissed Maggie suddenly as he paused. "She thinks I'm not who I should be. So she's turned on me. I'm pretty experienced with that specific phenomenon - an O'Connell woman turning on me. Because you're all crazy."

"You would boil this down to gender. My dad's nuts, too, you know. *And* my brother."

"True. It's nurture, not nature, with you guys."

"So what do you suggest we do, exactly?"

"Marry me."

Jane's breath caught in her throat. Her daughter would be furious to know she was witnessing such a personal moment. If a little artlessly chosen by Joel. 

"What?"

"I have a ring, you know. Not here with me, but I do. I just need you to tell me you've finally changed your mind."

"You want me to marry you so my mom - who you agree is crazy - will hate you a little bit less?"

He chuckled. "No. I want you to marry me because I love you. As always. And it's been a long time since the last time I asked and I was hoping..." Jane watched Joel's smile fade some. "It's still no, isn't it? It's always going to be no, isn't it?"

Maggie put her hand to Joel's cheek. "I'm sorry. You know I love you. And that it's not..."

"I know." He kissed her forehead. "Was a long shot anyway." He sat up. "We'd better get up. It's almost 10. I'm going to take a shower and pack." He sat up and hesitated a bit before saying, "You know though...and far be it from me to tell you how to relate to your own relations, but your mom deserves to know what's going on with us. Really going on. Not what you think she wants to be going on. She loves you and just wants you to be happy. And if that means being a bush pilot and living forever in Alaska with a Jewish guy you never plan to marry, you should tell her that. She hates me because she thinks I'm not giving you what you want. But that's all she really wants for you, deep down. To be happy and to have all you want. We have that in common, she and I..."

Jane moved back from the door and down the hallway, now certain she'd had everything backwards. She felt for Joel - he clearly knew her daughter well enough to have figured her out and made his peace with it. And seemed devoted to her regardless.

On the other side of the door, Maggie watched Joel walk towards it, as she stretched out in bed. "Do you really have a ring?"

He paused at the door and smiled. "Yeah. It's at home, but I do. I guess I'm an optimist, deep down inside. My offer always stands. Just say the word."

He stepped out into the hallway and walked back to 'his' room, shaking his head and smiling to himself. He froze when he saw Maggie's mom, perched primly on the edge of his bed.

"Er. Uh. Hi, Mrs. O'Connell."

"Jane. Please." She smiled at him enigmatically, and he felt a wave of something very familiar wash over him. She had her daughter's ability to put him on edge with just one unreadable look - to make him know all at once something serious was going on but feel totally lost as to his role in it all. Jane rose and walked towards him, pushing the door closed behind him before leaning back against it. "I thought we should talk, Joel. And I owe you an apology..."


	24. The Twenty-Fourth

December 27, 1994

With the several hours' time difference, Joel knew he was waking up late but he was still tired. Just two days to go, and, really, it was more like one day since he had an early evening flight the tomorrow. She was going meet him at the arrival gate in Anchorage, something that hadn't ever happened in all the years she'd been flying him places. He'd left so quickly, it was just lucky timing he'd even gotten to say goodbye.

He'd missed Christmas, too. He'd promised her they'd celebrate together - put up a tree, string popcorn, and...whatever else it was people did. She was going to show him, and he was going to do his best at being a willing participant. Just as she'd done for him with Passover and then Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He'd had to explain everything to her, even the parts of it that were unexplainable - things he just knew from tradition, from living them most of his life. She hadn't done everything the way his mom always had growing up, but the holidays felt like his - theirs - which was even better. He'd been excited about Christmas, ready to make something of hers something of theirs, too.

He'd gotten the call from his mother just after lunch on Friday. Normally, she'd talk with Marilyn (well, talk at Marilyn, really) for a long while before she finally asked to talk to Joel. So when Marilyn answered the phone Friday and said his mom's name, he turned to head to his office to leaf through a magazine until it was his turn.

He heard a gentle "wait" and turned to see Marilyn's concerned face. His mother was crying and phrases like "chest pain" and "ambulance" came in quick succession after "your father." He felt sick for a second, knowing from family history and his dad's own health what had likely happened. For the first time in months, he wished he weren't in Alaska - an only child four thousand miles from his distraught mother. 

"Ma! Ma. Just...I'll be on the next flight I can find. Which hospital?" The fastest itinerary he could assemble was 10 hours long and would take him through Chicago on his way to JFK. But first he had to get to Anchorage. Quickly.

Luckily, it hadn't snowed in several days, making flying out quickly a possibility. Unfortunately, it also meant Maggie was not around - in fact, she was probably landing in Anchorage at that very moment on the mail run she'd had to postpone twice because of bad weather. He ran into Red at the Brick who agreed to get Joel there as fast as possible if he was willing to leave right away. He didn't even bother to pack.

Joel was jumpy the entire flight, not just with flight jitters (his lack of rapport with Red usually led to protracted periods of silence and, in turn, his nervousness) but in thinking about his parents. Red made good time and Joel was ready to jump down onto the tarmac before the plane's wheels had even stopped. 

"Hold on, Dr. Fleischman. If you're flying out on a mainline flight, you'll need to clear security first. I'll have one of the ground guys take you over." He pulled the plane into a line with the other small planes at the edge of the airport and radioed for someone to get Joel.

While waiting, pacing as he did by Red's plane, Joel saw Maggie stroll out onto the airfield, wave to Red, and then do a double take when she saw him. 

"Hey! What are you doing here? You pilot-cheating on me with Red or...what's wrong, honey?"

She knew from 20 feet away that something was amiss. He told her everything he knew - which wasn't much - and that he'd call her as soon as things had stabilized. By the time he'd spoken to her next, it was almost a full day later.

"Hey, O'Connell. You awake? I tried to wait until I thought you'd be up."

"Yeah, I'm up..." He knew from her tone she hadn't been and heard her try to sound more alert. He'd done the math wrong on the time change by an hour the wrong direction. "How's your dad?"

Joel chuckled. "Irritated with Ma. He's fine. It wasn't a heart attack. Which was exactly what he'd been telling people over and over again, including Ma, all night long. By the time I got to the hospital, they'd figured out it was an esophageal spasm. Which presents almost exactly the same way and is a lot rarer. Painful and anxiety-inducing but episodic and treatable and, well, nothing at all really. In the grand scheme of things. He's smug to the point of being unbearable."

"Oh, Fleischman, I'm so glad. How's your mom doing?"

"She's tired. They didn't get the all clear on the cardiac stuff until early this morning, so she was up all night."

"And alone probably. Your poor mom..."

"No...her, uh, best friend came to sit with her with when Pop was admitted." His voice sounded strange to him, and he hoped it didn't to Maggie. He was too tired to get into all of that at this very moment. "Anyway, we're gonna take her home to rest now. They're keeping Pop a day or two, for a couple more tests and observation. Soonest I can get out of here is Wednesday. I'll get to Anchorage at 1:30. The direct flights are only every other day and the Monday one is already booked. I can't deal with connecting again. I had 3 hours to kill at O'Hare and nowhere to sleep. Since I'm trapped here, Ma's decided to turn this into a big homecoming type visit, calling in friends of hers I've never met and relatives I didn't even remember I had. I'm really sorry about all of this, sweetie. I just want to get home."

He paused a second, a little stunned by the realization that he'd finally lived to see the day when he felt trapped in New York and desperate to get back to Alaska. He waited for her to point it out, but she didn't. She had no sarcastic tone to her voice; she just sounded gentle and concerned. 

"It's okay. Don't apologize." 

He had to reinject some normalcy to their conversation. "Even for calling you sweetie?"

"I'll let it slide under the circumstances." An affectionate teasing tone had reentered her voice, having been granted permission to have things be less serious.

"Hey, can you call Marilyn for me? Tell her what's going on? I'll call her on Monday. We're gonna get going here pretty soon."

"Sure thing. Call me when you can, okay?"

"I will." Joel's felt a hand on his shoulder as he leaned against the payphone mounted on the hospital wall, waiting as Maggie moved to end their conversation. "Hey...and Merry Christmas tomorrow. I'm so sorry I'm not there to do the tree with you and everything."

"It's okay. Next year. I love you."

"I love you, too, sweetie."

"*Now* you're pushing it, Fleischman."

"I know I am. I'm meaning to. I miss you. Talk to you soon, okay?"

He hung up smiling and turned to face the older woman behind him whose expression told him immediately she'd absorbed a conversation he'd really rather have kept private. 

"You had plans for _Christmas_? And and a tree? It'll kill your mother to hear that, you know."

"Ma'll be fine. Is she ready to go yet?"

"You two are saying 'I love yous' now?"

Joel couldn't help his face breaking into a grin. "Yeah."

She gave him a wry smile back. "Well, I suppose that's old news at this point, isn't it... She's just getting her purse and everything together. I said we'd meet her by the elevator. You can drive your parents' car back and your mom can ride with me."

"Okay, Mrs. Shulman."

"Joel, it's been 20 years. We were almost family once. You can call me Maxine..."

\-----

His dad was kept under observation through Sunday night and then released with emergency nitroglycerin tablets he said he had no use for and a clean cardiovascular bill of health he said he already knew he'd had. Joel, having packed nothing and facing three and a half days of unwelcome social activities, opened his closet to find only his old high school clothes still hanging neatly inside. He was forced once again by geography to buy himself new clothing to get him through to returning home. His mother's eyes lit up at the notion of taking him out to buy new things, which then mutated into the most uncomfortable shopping trip he'd ever endured when Maxine decided she'd join them. He'd never imagined he'd be 31 years old, trying to pick out shirts while fielding unsolicited fashion input from both his mom and ex-almost-mother-in-law.

Maxine continued her usual schedule of coming by for coffee first thing every morning and staying the rest of the day to "help out." Joel's dad said they got together every day to gossip about everyone they knew, something he claimed to ignore but seemed to be fairly knowledgeable about. They were thrilled to get fresh subject matter in the form of Joel, his life in Alaska, and especially his nascent relationship. Even though that particular wound was long closed, the scars were still clearly quite visible and the whole topic made Joel uncomfortable. For two days now, too, it had continued.

Mrs. Shulman and his mother had been friends since well before he and Elaine were ever even born - not especially close friends, but they shared the same social circle. It was actually their children dating each other that had solidified their friendship. When he and Elaine ended things, their mothers' friendship struggled for several months as well, until Elaine had remarried.

Each privately blamed the other's child for ending things - Nadine blamed Elaine for cheating during her judicial internship-turned-marriage, while Maxine faulted Joel for driving Elaine to do it by developing what she termed an 'obvious crush' on the pretty young female pilot in his small town. When Dwight had passed away, Elaine's genuine heartbreak quickly healed Nadine's ire towards her. Maxine had eventually forgiven Joel, too, but harbored hard feelings for Maggie. Yes, her daughter was happily remarried now to a wonderful young (and Jewish!) man with whom she was expecting a baby imminently, but she always felt Joel would have been her son-in-law but for the meddling of this pilot woman. Nadine knew something deeper had to have been wrong between the two, and, if anything, Maggie had been a catalyst for necessary change. But she understood Maxine's need to blame someone - Nadine hadn't had to comfort Elaine after that first revealing trip Elaine had taken to Alaska. And she knew her son enough to know Elaine had been right. So they agreed to disagree and avoid the topic. Except now Joel was here.

All of this lurking below the surface meant that it had been an awkward few days for everyone. Between the hospital visits, his dad's self-satisfied belief that he knew better than doctors, being mothered to death after years of living as an independent adult, and Maxine's constant judgmental third degree about his relationship with Maggie, Joel was ready to go home. 

Alaska, he knew now, was home. Cicely. Maggie. Their house. His office. Marilyn. Chris in the morning and Shelly, Holling, and the Brick at night. Ruth Anne's store. Maurice's wild ideas. Ed's earnest questions. Here he was in New York - the place he'd dreamed about coming back to, sometimes day and night during the past few years - and he felt like he was missing something. Lots of somethings. Even now, laying in the comfort and familiarity of his childhood bedroom, he just wanted to call Maggie. It was still too early in Cicely, though, and he'd racked up a lot of long distance minutes already on his parents' line. He reached sideways to touch where she usually slept and felt someone stir.

"Hey stranger, you're home early." Joel felt Maggie nuzzle against his back and slip her arm around him, making a happy humming noise.

"Huh?" His mind started turning quickly. How the hell was she...

"When did you get back?"

"I didn't. O'Connell!" He rolled quickly over. "You know where you are? We're at my parents'. In Flushing. New York."

Maggie's eyes flew open and then darted around the room. "What day is it today?"

"Tuesday." Realization flooded Joel's thoughts. "...December 27. Oh God, I hadn't even considered...what the hell are we gonna do now?"

"Calm down. We've got time to think. And sleep still." She pulled him down to the bed again and hooked her knee behind his, snuggling against him. "It's the middle of the night."

"Not here it's not - it's already 8:30 am. Oh God...we need to get up. Figure out what to do. My mom invited everyone over for..." Another realization dawned on him, regarding exactly who all was assembled downstairs, waiting for poor jetlagged Joel to make his appearance at breakfast. All the stories he was saving to tell her about his tortured weekend suddenly seemed a lot less funny for her if she had to experience them first hand. _Everyone..._ He pushed himself up one one elbow. "Oh...O'Connell. Um...I need to tell you something..."

She smiled at him. "C'mere." She tugged on his shirt until he laid back down facing her. "Calm down. I really missed you, you know." She kissed him, her hands moving up his back to move through his hair.

At that moment, his door opened as someone knocked. "Joey? You ever going to get up? Your mom sent me up here to...

Joel broke his kiss with Maggie and sat up quickly. He knew the voice, even without being called Joey. "Laney?" He paused, taking her in at his door. "Whoa. You are...well, you're very...wow."

"Pregnant is the word." Elaine stood in Joel's doorway striking that pose that only very pregnant women can - one hand braced against her lower back and the other hovering gently on the sizable bump in her midsection. His eyes lingered there as he tried to come up with something approaching a relevant response. 

"Really _really_ pregnant."

"Thirty-seven weeks. And you are..." Joel felt Maggie sit up in bed beside and just a bit behind him and put her hand on his arm. He reached up to put his on top of hers. "...in bed with Maggie O'Connell."

Joel felt like time froze for a second, in what had to be one of the most uncomfortable moments of his life - in a weekend that had been full of them - before he watched a knowing and affectionate smile flit across Elaine's lips. "Last time, she caught you and I in bed, so I guess it's my turn to find the two of you." Her eyes shifted to Maggie, "Hi. Didn't realize you were here, too."

"Neither did I," Maggie murmured into Joel's ear before saying hello back to Elaine, her voice uncharacteristically soft and unsure. Joel felt her grip on his arm get a little tighter.

"Your hair is cute, longer like that."

"Uh...thanks."

Elaine's eyes shifted back to Joel. "And yours...looks exactly the same. Well, the goal was to surprise you and make you feel uncomfortable which has obviously been even more successful than your mom intended. Sorry for interrupting...I will tell her to set out another plate. You're a month late for Hanukkah, but she made you latkes anyway. And there's real bagels. Lox. Cream cheese. All your favorites." Her eyes flickered to a second to Maggie's before going back to Joel. "Or your old favorites, at least. So." The air was thick with things no one was willing or able to say. "We will...see you both downstairs." 

She pulled the door shut behind her as Maggie and Joel held onto each other in silence for several seconds, which Maggie finally broke. 

"'Laney'?"

"Sorry. Force of habit."

"Uh huh. So she remarried, huh?"

"Yeah."

"You never mentioned."

"I didn't think you'd be terribly interested in the goings-on of my ex."

"I told you about Mike."

"Not right away, you didn't."

"Fair enough. So she's here because..."

"Her mom's my mom's best friend. Maxine. She was at the hospital. And here all weekend."

"I see." Maggie's voice had a steely tone that made him immediately defensive. "And Elaine...?"

"...was not. This is the first time I've seen her since..." His mind flashed back to that last morning with Elaine, after he'd slept with her, said goodbye, and hurt Maggie all in one fell swoop. "For years. I didn't mention it because I didn't want you to worry. And I was going to tell you when I got home. I was. There are lots of stories from this weekend where you get to laugh at my expense. She's obviously very pregnant with another guy's baby. Whereas I am in love with you. Surely she poses no threat. You know, if I were you, I'd be a lot more concerned with my wardrobe, anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, when I got here, I had to buy all new stuff because all that I had here was last in style in about 1985."

"Fleischman, I doubt you've ever been in style."

"Funny. The thing is, you..." he turned to look at Maggie and smile..."you, my dear, are wearing my med school shirt and nothing else. Don't get me wrong, it looks great on you. But you will be expected to come downstairs as soon as my mom finds out about this. And how are we going to explain how you got here?"

Footsteps could suddenly be heard in the hallway outside Joel's door. "I don't know but you'd better think quick..."

\-----

They'd told his mom she flew standby on a late-arriving flight the night before and that the airline had lost her luggage in transit. Joel assumed, and was right, that his mother's joy at finally, officially meeting Maggie would make her willing to overlook cavernous gaps in their story. Nadine invited Maggie to try to put something together to wear out of her own closet, and dragged Joel down the moment he was dressed to install him on the loveseat in the living room.

She had squeezed all of the dining room chairs in between the room's usual seating, making an impenetrable semi-circle facing him. Surrounding him. He was the morning's entertainment, it appeared. It was exactly the same setup he and Elaine had stared down together ten years ago and newly engaged. Except now, Elaine sat amongst the onlookers, the seat next to him empty, awaiting Maggie. _Elaine's replacement_ , he knew they were all thinking, tsking to themselves, _the one that caused them to break up - the other woman_ , despite none of that being true. Well, entirely true. The whole thing felt like he imagined a firing squad would, if, instead of armed executioners, the accused were met with tightly-knit groups of polite, gossipy, and almost exclusively Jewish middle-aged women.

Oddly, the only sympathetic set of eyes on him, other than his mother's, was Elaine's. Elaine looked happy, if physically uncomfortable, the way someone just weeks from birth would understandably be. He gave her a small smile, which she returned. This couldn't be terribly pleasant for her either - having to act as the metaphorical elephant in the room. Seeing her again reaffirmed what he'd felt when they'd parted. He'd been glad for their time together, and he'd always care about her. But that kind of love wasn't in the realm of this head-over-heels thing he felt with Maggie.

In between bites of his mother's latkes, he watched his interrogators assemble themselves as he began to field question after question about Alaska. No, he didn't live in an igloo. Yes, there really were fewer than a thousand people in the town they lived in. No, there weren't Eskimos, though there were the Tlingit, one of whom in particular ran his office and terrified him with her silence, though not necessarily in that order. Yes, he really was staying there forever now. No, not just because of Maggie. Yes, it got unbelievably, ungodly cold there, and, no, he didn't think he'd ever get used to that. The next question was more pointed and offered icily. It threw the room into uncomfortable silence, sympathetic glances drifting Elaine's way.

"So...tell us how you and Maggie met and got together?" As if any single one of them didn't already know. In detail. He opened his mouth to begin, only to have Maggie appear just behind him. 

"He assumed I was a hooker and went out of his way to refuse me after critiquing what he thought was my sales pitch. I hated him on sight."

With that introduction, she worked her way through the closed circle to sit down next to Joel. She took his hand with her right and reached for his coffee with her left, sipping from his mug and steeling herself for the ambush he'd warned her was waiting.

She did great. Funny, warm, and articulate as always, all done with an apparent confidence that shrugged off the many well-honed daggers aimed her way. She deftly navigated their collective appraisal on every topic from literature to flying and just about everything in between. She'd even held her own in a conversation about Jewish cooking - she'd taught herself to make a hell of a hamentashen cookie, after all (which he said as his mother, who'd given her the recipe, smiled at Maggie). He knew her enough to know it was all feigned confidence, that she'd been nervous - he felt her palm sweat against his and heard her quickened breath and tense voice - but he was the only one who noticed. He watched with amazement as she managed to win the room over, one by one, until all of them seemed genuinely delighted, both for Joel and by her, _other woman_ or not.

After breakfast, they'd been excused to go to the city so Maggie could buy some clothes and so Joel could show her around. Once they were around the corner and out of earshot of their audience, he expressed amazement for her handling of it all.

"Fleischman," she'd said calmly, "you forget I did the whole debutante thing. I'm very used to having to win over a room full of women who want badly to hate me."

\-----

She'd never been to New York, so he gave her the most abbreviated of tours, taking the subway into midtown and showing her the celestial ceiling of Grand Central, the lions that guarded the central library, and the spire of the Empire State Building (and then dutifully schlepped her over to see the lobby of the Chrysler Building when she'd said, even if shorter, it was the prettier of the two. With which he agreed. And fell in love with her a little bit more for saying.) Granted they'd argued over how to get to each place, and then again from midtown up to Columbia when Joel hesitated for a moment about which street to take. 

"I draw up maps for a living, Fleischman. I know what I'm talking about, and you are lost."

"Now you're claiming cartography as an expertise, are you? You *write on* other people's maps as guides to use in your living. Whereas I lived here. For 27 years. I am not lost."

"Here? Right here, by this off-track betting parlor? This was a frequent haunt of yours when you were 6 years old?"

"How many times have you been here, then, O'Connell?"

"I don't need to have been anywhere before to know which way is north. It's a global constant."

Eventually they stopped talking to each other. But they never let go of each other's hand. They started talking again when they were walking through the Columbia campus, by "P&S," which he insisted was what people called the medical school within the confines of New York. She had him drag her past his lecture halls and the oft-referenced study carrel, and watched him mentally flash back to that exhilarating and miserable time in his life. They had a late lunch at his favorite pizza place near campus and headed back to Queens to see his high school.

They wound their way slowly back to his parents' neighborhood, and he pointed out smaller-scale childhood landmarks - the place he'd learned to ride a bike, the place not terribly far from that he'd knocked out his two front baby teeth falling off said bike, the elementary school he'd stood out front of when his mother let go of his hand and gave him a helpful nudge down the path towards kindergarten. 

In the present, still hand in hand, they headed for his parents' house, now bordering on being late for the dinner his mother insisted on. She'd fed him constantly this trip, apparently trying to make up for 5 years' worth of lost time. They'd been talking all day - and arguing for some of it - but now were walking now in rare companionable silence, when she asked him, "Do you miss it? New York?" She'd worried more and more as the day had gone on that the answer was an emphatic yes.

They turned onto the sidewalk on his parents' street. "Not one bit," he said mildly.

She laughed. "I don't believe you one bit. I don't think you've smiled this much in all the years I've known you. You seem happy. It's really strange to observe on someone so usually dour as you - like a fish trying to operate on dry land."

"I really don't miss it," he said distractedly, before going silent and looking pensive. "I like showing you these things. But I don't miss living here."

Something was off in his voice, and he hadn't returned her halfhearted insult. She gave his hand a gentle tug. "What's wrong, Fleischman?"

"Absolutely nothing." He stopped on the sidewalk at the gate to the yard around his parents' building, turning towards her and taking her hands in his.

"What? Even you can't be lost right now - we're out front of your parents' house."

"I know. I just..." He trailed off and looked up above her head, breaking eye contact. She knew this look, he was trying to marshal his thoughts and feelings. His eyes met hers and looked serious. "O'Connell, I really want to ask you something."

"Okay, well, shoot, Fleischman."

"I'm trying to. The thing is, I'm worried the answer to this particular question hasn't changed."

"Oh," she said softly. "You mean ask me...that question....Fleischman, you're only asking because we just sat in a room full of people who think that's what you should do. And that you're well past the age to do it."

"I'm really not. It has to do with them, with my parents, with New York, but not for the reasons you think. I've spent the last 3 days with the family I was born into. Doing that made me realize that you're...the family I choose. And I know it doesn't matter how official things are to you, but...and I know it shouldn't matter to me, either. And it doesn't, on some level. At least in terms of how I feel about you. About us. But...I'm not sure I know how to explain this. I just...I wish you'd reconsider. And, walking with you today, just now, I had the overwhelming impulse to...anyway, forget about it. I'm sorry. You promise you'll tell me if your mind changes, right?"

Her face was a mix of emotions. "Yes."

"Okay. Sorry to bring this up again. I love you, and I'm just glad you're here. That's the main thing I'm wanting to convey, I think. We should probably go in. C'mon." He gave her a smile, kissed her cheek, and turned to go inside. She didn't move at first, seemingly rooted to the spot, until he tugged her hand to follow him inside.

She seemed quieter than usual at dinner, at least at first, and he figured she felt pretty jetlagged. He assumed she felt at least a little bad for disappointing him, too. He hadn't asked in a long time, and he was annoyed with with himself for pushing the subject on her again, knowing her answer was still no. 

They'd spent the day walking through the part of his life she hadn't been there for, and she never felt closer to him. What he hadn't known, standing there on the sidewalk in front of his parents' house, is that in that moment, something inside her had changed. And standing out front in the chilly early evening air, she'd finally given him the answer he wanted to the question he'd decided to stop asking her.


	25. The Twenty-Fifth

January 27, 1995

Four days now. Four days they'd been stuck in their house. Four days since they'd seen anyone other than each other. Hell, they hadn't even seen outside but through the front door and windows in all that time. An unprecedented fifty inches of snow - and piles driven higher than that against their leeward front door - had fallen in the course of about 10 hours Monday night. After days of subzero temperatures and cloudy skies, hope seemed to have finally arrived in the form of the sunlight glinting in through their bedroom window on Friday morning. But they were still stuck.

It really was beautiful, at least at first. When they'd woken up Tuesday morning, they'd stared together in disbelief at the field of white facing them outside their front door. The waist-high snowdrift that had blown against the door had fallen partway in as they'd opened it to gaze at their trucks, now two indisguishable blobs in front of their house. Feeling trapped was the absolute last thing on their minds as they took it all in in those first minutes.

As the hours and days ticked by, they'd gone through several distinct stages. At first, they'd had fun with it. It felt cozy, having nowhere to be and nothing to do but stay warm and entertain themselves together. She'd made popcorn, and they'd sat together with a blanket wrapped around them on the couch most of the first day watching movies. At least, that had been the goal. They were supposed to alternate who picked, but she'd unilaterally vetoed two of his movies and skipped on to her choices. He pretended to be irritated but kept busy seeing how long it took to get her interested in missing her movie. And then he'd try to beat his record. It had been a long time since they'd done this in the middle of a weekday. Or on the couch.

By the third time, she'd figured it out. "Took you thirteen minutes this time. Should I point out that I've noticed you checking your watch," she breathed into his ear as he moved above her.

"I'm sure it's just a coincidence," he murmured back, kissing the side of her neck. "Anyway, you're just mad I got away with it for this long."

"And you're assuming I picked movies I wanted to watch..."

Stage one had been fun - filling the hours with movies, sex, talking, board games, bantering - joint activities. That night, they'd cooked an elaborate meal together - well, she'd cooked, and he'd cut everything up, perfectly uniform in size and precisely chopped, such being the sole skill he brought to cooking. They stayed up late talking and laughing together in bed, knowing they could sleep in as late as they wanted the next morning. 

\-----

By day two, the novelty of being stuck - and of all of the uninterrupted time together - had started to wear off. Stage two was spent doing solo activities, after which they'd reconvene mostly cheerfully. He'd called friends and relatives, and she'd read a book. He read through 4 medical journals and made notes while she reorganized her desk, their linen closet, and the kitchen cabinets. Dinner wasn't the protracted ordeal it had been the night before, but it was still nice. She fell asleep next to him as he read in bed, her hand on his chest.

Stage three was when things started to take a negative turn. After breakfast Wednesday, she'd gone to call her mother - the true sign of boredom for her - but found no dial tone. She'd hunted him down grumpily and found him in their bedroom, leafing halfheartedly through a magazine. Her magazine.

"Fleischman? When's the last time you called someone?"

"Yesterday afternoon. Called Ma. Why?"

"You called her yesterday morning."

"And then I called her back in the afternoon. So?"

"You talked to her twice in one day?"

He squinted at her over the top of the magazine and his glasses. "We're stuck inside. What else do you suggest I do? Clean everything we own like you?" His eyes moved back to the page in front of him.

"That's my magazine." He didn't react as if he'd heard her. She felt a little flash race through her and had to actively talk herself out of picking a fight with him. "The phone's not working."

He turned the page without looking up. "Are you sure?" That same primal feeling moved through her again. She wanted badly to yell at him and had to work to remind herself he hadn't done anything other than to be in this house and be bored, just like her. 

"Yes, Fleischman. I'm not a complete idiot. I know when the phone isn't working. There's no dial tone. It's sort of a basic requirement for its operation."

"Uh huh. Who were you going to call anyway?" He said, obviously uninterested in her answer.

"My mom, but..."

"Good, then," he muttered. "I may be bored, but I'm not bored enough to hear yet another indignant recounting of all the ways you think she's criticizing you."

The impulse grew stronger. " _Think_ she's criticizing..." She watched him blithely turn another page. "Say that again, Fleischman, slowly, because I want to get the wording just right for when I claim justifiable homicide to Officer Semanski later."

He finally looked all the way up, amused by her jab but with guilty eyes. He tossed the magazine aside, put his glasses on the bedside table, and crossed his legs in front of him, kindergarten style, as he sat all the way up, looking more rueful. "Hey, I'm sorry. I think my subconscious just tried to pick a fight with you out of sheer boredom. I've almost done that twice already this morning. Don't get me wrong, I love fighting with you, but maybe we should be careful until we can get out of here. You know how we are."

That he was feeling the same impulses was oddly reassuring. He looked cute just then, too, an earnestly apologetic smile, sitting with his legs crossed in front of him, barefoot on their bed. Her primal impulse to yell at him did a 180 inside of her, turning into another impulse entirely. "So you're suggesting we channel our anxiousness into something more productive?" She climbed onto the bed and crawled towards him. "Or fun. You know what always takes the edge off of our fighting?" She gave him a playful shove onto his back, and he acted quickly enough to pull her down with him.

"I do..." he gave her a quick kiss and wrapped his arms around her. "I love you, you know."

"Good. Because that may be all that keeps us from killing each other before the week is out. You said it was twice, but I can tell you *ten* different things you've done this morning alone that, even under normal circumstances, would give me total license to..." 

He pulled her down to him, still smiling. "This is usually your line, but shut up, O'Connell..." He felt her smile back as he kissed her.

\-----

By the afternoon that day, even sex had lost its allure. The energy they had for deescalating petty arguments had started to fade right along with their libidinous impulses.

"O'Connell - do you think that, just once, you might consider not tossing my mail, unopened, in with yours? Just as a personal favor, if not out of basic organizational logic? I'm clearing off this desk, and there's a letter in here from 3 weeks ago."

"You're pissed when I open your mail, and you're pissed when I don't. Which is it?"

"I don't want you to open it, but don't hide it from me unopened."

"Hide it? It's right there."

"That's not where I keep my mail."

"What is your problem exactly? Is it that hard to look here" she pointed at her half of the desk "as well as there?" 

"I don't know to look if I don't know I have something to look for."

"I already cleaned up that desk anyway. Why are you cleaning it again?"

"It sure doesn't look clean. All that's changed is that now I can't find anything on it."

He watched her close her eyes briefly before reopening them with an artificially saccharine smile on her face, one that didn't reach her eyes. "I thought we were trying not to fight with each other."

"I'm not fighting; I'm trying to organize my mail. What of it I can find, that is."

"Fine. You do that - again - and I'll...go do something else."

"Fine."

"Fine."

\-----

By the following evening, their electricity had gone the way of the phone service and both of them knew they were like a pile of dry kindling, where just the slightest spark would set them off. In the end, it was doing the dishes that did it. 

He'd watched her watching him out of the corner of her eye as he washed and she dried, all in silence and candlelight.

"What?"

"What what?"

"You're staring. Is it that interesting to watch me wash dishes? There's barely light enough to see what I'm doing, let alone for you to get a good look at me doing it."

"Ah. That explains it. Here. Let's switch. You dry."

"Why? My hands are already wet, I'll just finish. And explains what?"

"Nothing." She tried to will herself to leave things there but failed. "Maybe you need more soap. That's all."

"Why?" His voice sounded incredibly irritated now.

"Well, these just don't feel clean, Fleischman. That's all. I'm sure it's just doing this in the dark that's the problem."

"What the hell would darkness have to do with the thoroughness of the job I'm doing? I'm not laying sutures here."

"Thank God you do a better job of that than this," she muttered.

His hands went still midway through washing the plate in his hands. "I'm sorry, what passive aggressive message are you trying to convey to me that I'm missing right now? That I'm bad at washing the dishes?"

"I'm not being passive aggressive. They just aren't clean. I can feel it."

"They're fine." He paused a long while before his hands resumed their movement and he spoke again. "You're just looking for something to criticize because you're bored and stressed out with the power outage and from being cooped up in here."

"I'm being honest, Fleischman, and you're being too sensitive and making excuses like you always do when people criticize you. It has to be their fault because it cannot possibly be your fault."

His hands replaced the dish in the soapy water this time, and he turned to dry them on the towel hanging on the oven. 

"Where are you going?"

"Finish it yourself then," he tossed over his shoulder as he left the kitchen. "Since I'm doing such a terrible job."

"Fine." His calm, if terse, exit made her suddenly feel like the unreasonable party, which only pissed her off further. She blew the candle out with a harder breath than was necessary and left everything where it was as she dried her hands and turned to follow him. "I get to clean up after you again? You're such a typical only child, Fleischman. In constant search of being babied. Helpless. Inconsiderate. Self centered. Spoiled..."

He turned around to face her in quasi darkness. "*I'm* spoiled? You are calling *me* spoiled? Miss cotillion? Miss my sixteenth birthday present was a brand new car? Miss I can do whatever I want whenever I want and it'll all work out fine for me? Miss I haven't had to work hard a day in my life because I have the ultimate safety net?"

She'd fixed on the last in his line of accusations. "Haven't had to work hard? So what, you think I don't work hard because I didn't force myself through medical school solely as a means of climbing the socioeconomic ladder?" As soon as she said it, she knew she'd gone too far, and she pivoted to a milder attack on his personality, hoping he'd forget the other thing she'd just implied. "Become a doctor even though I'm antisocial and ill-suited to any job that would put me in even the tiniest bit contact with other people?"

"What are you saying there, O'Connell? That I'm a bad doctor, too?" And he'd somehow managed to find a third interpretation to what she was saying - one she hadn't meant at all. His tone was hurt - she could hear it clearly in his voice, but he'd hurt her with what he said. His question hung between them; she could hear him daring her to escalate this. She couldn't bring herself to do it. No matter how satisfying it would be to hit him where he was insecure, he was good at what he did and she knew it. So she stuck to questioning his motivations. 

"Don't kid yourself - you sure didn't get into medicine to help people."

"Oh you think so, huh? Well, at least I don't use my parents' money to finance running away from becoming them."

He knew before their bedroom door slammed that he'd be sleeping elsewhere that night. They'd been living together for 3 months now, and, for all their bickering, she'd never kicked him out of bed before. Then again, he'd never been angry enough at her to be glad to get kicked out. He had no interest in laying beside her tonight, cold or not. With a blanket gathered around his shoulders, he laid down, glaring into the darkness of their living room for a long, long time before falling into a fitful sleep on their couch.

Behind their bedroom door, Maggie surprised herself by crying - something that hardly ever happened. These were tears of fury, not sadness, and that she was crying made her angrier still. She wasn't sure whether she was angry with him or herself. They'd both been idiots and said things they shouldn't have. Very personal things, aimed at hurting the other. Even so, what he said was worse and she was as far from conciliatory as she could get. She decided to lock their door to show him just how angry she was when he came crawling in to apologize, but she never heard him bother to try the lock.

\-----

Now, on Friday morning, they woke up to the sound of a huge mass of snow sliding off their roof. The sound woke them both; only she'd known that's what it was.

"What the hell was that?" He asked from behind her. His arm was draped over her, her back against his chest.

"Snow falling off the roof. It must finally be warm enough that it's melting a little." 

His fingers were stroking her arm gently as he held her, which he paused at the mention of the snow. They both remembered their argument in the that moment and spoke at the same time.

"I'm sorry about last night." "That door was *locked*."

After a pause, he spoke first. "You locked me out?"

"Yes," she said tersely, feeling all at once like a petulant child. "And get your hands off of me. You and I are..."

"Are what?" He nuzzled the back of her neck and kissed her, fingers back to moving gently along her arm. "You can't break up with me unless you admit I was your boyfriend first, O'Connell." He was seriously undermining her will to be mad, using that tone to his voice and moving his lips along her neck. "And I know you won't do that."

"Why are you in here?"

"Because it's my bedroom, too. And I'm guessing because it's the 27th of January today. And we have that thing that happens where we wake up somewhere other than where we lie down. Believe me, I wasn't about to come in here on my own. I'm pretty pissed off at you." He dropped another kiss along her neck.

"Oh really? You're mad at me, huh?"

"Yes." He kissed her neck again, and put his knee on top of hers, enveloping her further. "Very."

"Yeah, well, I'm mad at you. And you don't seem all that mad."

"You called me spoiled, helpless, inconsiderate, anti-social, materialistic, uncaring, a bad doctor, and implied I only got into medicine out of necessity because my parents aren't wealthy." He kissed her again, beneath her ear. "Oh, and you called me a bad dish washer, too. That wasn't very nice, you know." He dropped another kiss to her earlobe. "I'm thoroughly angry with you." His voice sounded anything but.

She shivered a little in response to his kiss and paused to gather together her irritation and work on formulating a response. "I never said you were a bad doctor."

He chuckled and pulled her closer. "You wanted to. I'm not sure why you drew the line there, with everything else you said. Not that I'm blameless here." He kissed down her neck, his fingertips still dancing lightly along her forearm.

"If you're mad, why are you kissing me...and why am I letting you, is really the better question..."

"I'm sorry for what I said." Another kiss.

"Fleischman, that's wholly insufficient, given everything you..."

"Fine, then. I'll give you the long version. My dad never played catch with me."

"Huh?"

"I told you it was the long version. I loved baseball. Still do, of course, but nothing like when I was little. He did, too. But my dad never had time to go to games. Uncle Manny and I did that, which was great, but... And Dad wasn't ever able to throw the ball around with me. No one taught me to play catch. I just had to figure it out myself. Consequentially, I've got a horrible throw. So no baseball career for me."

"Well. I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm not sure how it's relevant to..."

"His arm was killing him most of the time. Still does. He screwed up his shoulder early on...he really should get it replaced, but you know how he is. His knees are awful, too - he can hardly deal with stairs some days. The point is, he hurt himself with work. Construction - even concrete - actually _especially_ concrete - is hard work. Physically. It screws you up early and for good. And I decided young that I was going to grow up to do something that wouldn't wreck my body by middle age. Since my dad sacrificed his in the hopes I'd have that chance."

"Oh..."

"And my mom worked hard, too. I mean, she didn't work-work, but she did everything she did so that my dad could do what he did. She'd gone to school to be a nurse. Did you know that? I don't think I've ever told you before. That's all they let women major in when she went to college - that or teaching - but she has a degree in nursing. She'd have been great at it, too. She'd have been an even better doctor. Caring. A good listener. Smart and great at seeing patterns. Connecting seemingly disconnected facts. But then I was born and...that was it for nursing, ya know?"

"I..."

"So you were right, to some degree. With what you said last night. I did become a doctor because my parents weren't rich. They'd lived their lives a certain way to put a different life within my reach. Getting there wasn't really a choice for me. And so I carry a lot of jealousy for rich kids. Including you sometimes, to be honest. People who could just pursue their heart's desire and never worry about the kind of life it would mean for them, because no matter what, it wouldn't be a hard one. And so last night, when a millionaire's daughter told me I was spoiled, I might have overreacted a little bit. Even though I'm in love with her."

He kissed her again before continuing. "It clouded how I almost always feel about you and what I think we would both agree is an otherwise stellar record of being an exemplary non-boyfriend. I am sorry for what I said last night, though. You work harder applying yourself to learning something about everything than anyone I know, and you are the furthest thing in the world from spoiled, in spite of how you grew up. You walked away from that life to figure it all out on your own. And with constant criticism and no emotional support from your family for doing so. And I love that about you. Even though I think it's nuts."

"Fleischman..."

"As for me, there are lots of ways to be rich, O'Connell. A lot of them considerably easier than a medical career. When I was 8, a girl in my class fell on the playground got a huge construction nail embedded 2 inches deep in skin of her palm. The teacher ran to get the nurse, and the other kids just stood around and stared at her. She was sitting there alone, crying and scared and in pain, and no one was doing anything to help fix any of that. Everyone was just standing there, waiting for someone to fix it. I couldn't stand that. I sat down next to her, took her hand, and pulled the nail out. Which, of course, made it bleed like crazy. It was a really stupid thing to do, in retrospect. But I wrapped my scarf around her hand and slowed the bleeding. Talked to her. Told her it was going to be okay. And she believed it. She stopped crying, and she felt better. Because of me. That's why I'm a doctor, O'Connell."

"I didn't know that..."

"I do still have some secrets. I couldn't just sit there and do nothing; I had to try to fix it. And the thing is, O'Connell, that stuff - helping people, fixing them, figuring it out, solving problems - it's why I love being a doctor. What you said is true. I wanted to do better than my parents did. Not that I am - I make probably a quarter of what my dad made. Which I know you know since Maurice tells everyone what he gets away with paying me, even if they don't ask. But if they'd had money enough to put me through any school I wanted, I'd still have become a doctor. But if they'd had money, I'd have never have taken that scholarship. And then I'd have never met you. And you made me remind myself of all of this last night. That I am only here because of money, but I wouldn't change it for anything. So, sometime around 3 am, I decided I was only mad about the dishwashing comment." He pushed her shoulder down and moved over her to kiss her lips slowly. "But I'm just furious about that."

She smiled at him, their eyes locked on each other's. "Uh huh. Well. You're right, too. I didn't want to be my parents - end up staying with someone because it was the easy thing to do. Which is why I'm with you." She kissed him back before pausing abruptly and pulling back. "Wait. We seem to be skipping a step; I never accepted your apology."

"Or apologized yourself." He moved further on top of her.

"Mine's always implied." She watched him roll his eyes and grin before leaning to kiss her again, something she dodged. "No way. I'm not that easy. After an argument like that, you owe me."

"You didn't even apologize, and I slept on the couch. What further penance should I endure?"

"You want back in my good graces or not?"

"Name your terms. I'll see if I think you're worth it."

"Three things. First, I am sorry. I picked a fight and said a lot of things I shouldn't have that I really don't think. Thoughtless and frankly pretty mean things, particularly in light of everything you just said. Some of which I didn't know...not that that changes whether what I said was...nevermind, the point is I love you and I'm sorry, too."

He smiled at her. "Okay. What's thing two?"

"I wash and you dry from now on. Because I'm not that sorry about saying the thing about the dishes. The way you do it makes me crazy. I can't live like that anymore."

He squinted at her, shaking his head slowly and smiling. "Fine. And? What's the last thing?"

"Roll us over. I wanna be up there and have you down here when we do what I think we're going to do next."

"I can live with that."

\-----

Finally free, Maggie and Joel went to the Brick Saturday night, joining the others they hadn't seen in almost a week. Nearly everyone had been trapped in some way - Ed at Maurice's, Ruth Anne had invited Chris to stay for safety's sake, and Marilyn had missed most of the storm, visiting her mother. Everyone seemed a little on edge and grateful for new human contact.

Shelly put two beers down in front of Joel and Maggie. "You two survived all that time together, huh?"

"Sure. We had fun." Maggie said while Joel bit his tongue and sipped his drink.

"Well, then you did better than H and I did. All we did was clean stuff and and argue. Even booty stopped being fun. If Randi hadn't been there, we'd probably have gone ten rounds over every little thing. I was extra worried about you guys since you fight so much already, but H said you two probably like doin' that more than you like doin' it anyway. So you'd be just fine. Unless the power went out, and then you'd both really be in trouble since you're both spoiled city kids."

Maggie looked at Joel out of the corner of her eye, as if she could hear his thoughts.

"I wasn't going to say a word..."


	26. The Twenty-Sixth

February 27, 1995

Ruth Anne woke and felt right away that the house wasn't empty. Her house was cozy, but small and not terribly well insulated against internal noise. Which didn't matter, as she was most often alone inside of it. She pulled her robe on and padded out of her bedroom barefoot to investigate, feeling a little silly.

Her boys worried about her living alone like she did. "Mom, what if something happens? What if someone breaks in?" As if either would happen in Cicely. And as if she couldn't take care of herself. 

And yet someone - or something - was in her house this morning. Whoever - or whatever - it was was in her guest room. Quiet, but in there. She crept down the hall, moving around the creaky bits of her old wood floor to keep from startling whatever it was she was sneaking up on. The door to her guest room was partially open and she leaned to peek through the gap, trying to talk herself into that an animal must have made its way inside.

She saw Joel first, and it took several seconds to register that it was him she saw because it made no sense. She'd have been less surprised to see a moose in her spare bed than Joel Fleischman. And then she noticed Maggie next to him, Joel's arm draped across her midsection. Both looked contented and peaceful. Happy, even. The scene made her heart joyful.

They were such a strange and private couple, their public persona so much embroiled in bickering. Flirtatious bickering, of course, but rarely did she see anything even close to a quiet, gentle moment like this. Maggie only referenced their relationship obliquely with comments like "Fleischman was saying in bed last night" or "our stove." She only knew what she could see beyond that - that they'd been living together for a long time now, largely (and surprisingly) successfully, and that he had to be nearing the end of his "sentence" and neither was talking about New York. Most telling was how they looked at each other when they didn't think anyone was watching. 

Maggie's language had softened substantially over time, where Joel was concerned. "Insufferable, conceited asshole" transitioned into "irritating jerk" before more and more being paired with the opening caveat "don't ask me why, Ruth Anne, but..." Maggie's temper and penchant for revenge had faded, just as she'd gotten more comfortable that she didn't need to be seen rebelling against every convention that existed. She even cooked for the both of them most nights - something the knee-jerk feminism of hers from years ago would have abhorred. He was a horrible cook, she'd said when admitting this to Ruth Anne, a rueful grin on her face, saying she'd rather risk looking like a kept woman than eat what he made. As if anyone could mistake who kept whom in their relationship. Anymore, that kind of smile - one she couldn't hide - accompanied every mention of him, no matter how mad she wanted to seem. Ruth Anne suspected she'd gotten comfortable with the fact that she'd fallen in love - not that Maggie would ever tell her that.

Joel was even harder to read than Maggie. Not only did they not talk as often, but Joel was somehow more private than even Maggie was - especially about her, about them. This, despite a mouth that was always in motion. Still, Ruth Anne felt for a strange fondness for him - not the similitude she felt with Maggie, since Joel was nothing like her, but he garnered a familiarity she couldn't quite place. His way of discussing Maggie had changed quite a bit, as Maggie's had - transitioning slowly from exasperated disbelief to affectionate bemusement. Joel himself had changed too, of course, from the pompous but boyish and ever on-edge New Yorker counting down the days until he went home, to a slightly calmer and more mature - if still quite neurotic - young man.

In front of her now, they looked a happy and loving couple - a nice sight, given how much heartache they'd endured, some of it at the hands of each other. Maggie's family and her terrible luck with men, combined with her rebellious spirit made her due for a little happiness. Joel, too, had had his share of misfortunes in life, pulled from the only place he'd known and the life and woman he'd grown up waiting to join, only to be deposited a world away with strangers and a lifestyle he wasn't naturally equipped to understand. It always seemed fitting that they'd found something in the other person that made their lives better for sharing them. Once they'd learned to share better, that is. Ruth Anne smiled to herself, having almost forgotten for a few moments that their being here was strange. She cleared her throat and spoke.

"Wasn't aware I had house guests this morning," she said, her voice rousing and startling Joel first, who tightened his hold on Maggie protectively as he moved to sit up, confused. 

"Ruth Anne?"

"The one and only, Joel. And at the risk of seeming unwelcoming, may I ask why you're in my guest bedroom this morning?"

Maggie had pushed herself up, and was sitting next to Joel, who turned to look at her, an amused expression on his face. "You wanna handle this one, sweetie?"

Maggie scowled playfully back at him. "I thought we agreed you were going to stop calling me that. Particularly in front of other people."

"No. No, what happened in actuality was you said that, and then I nodded to indicate I'd heard it, at which point we stopped talking about it. From which you extrapolated that I had agreed with you. As usual. You've always struggled with the distinction between my simply hearing you and you winning an argument with me." As he battled to hold his own against Maggie, he gently nudged the fallen strap of her tank top with his finger, repositioning it for her on her shoulder.

"Winning? That's a little sick, Fleischman; normal people don't have arguments to win."

"You and I are the furthest possible thing from normal, and you know it. We've never had an argument we're not trying desperately to win," he countered, incredulous.

"As if you've ever won one."

"Oh really? Let's count the times I've won arguments with you."

"Yes. Let's. Because I think you'd be surprised at how you..."

"Before you two start in, I'd like my answer."

They both turned to look blankly at her, obviously having already forgotten her question, if not also her presence, entertained now by their own back-and-forth.

"My guest room?" She prompted, gesturing. "Your presence here in it?"

"Oh," Joel said. "Well. Uh." He looked at Maggie. "O'Connell?"

Her face snapped back to look at his. "You keep assuming it's my job to explain this. Why do I have to be the one?"

"Well, why should _I_? It will sound much less crazy coming from you. Plus, you and Ruth Anne have been friends for a long time."

Maggie considered this, frowning a moment, before brightening. "Yeah, but you're the scientist, though. And the realist. If you tell her, it'll lend credibility to our story."

"What credibility? You quite literally just told me I'm always wrong."

"Here's your big chance to be right, then." Maggie paused again, thinking, before taking a more conciliatory tone. "Please?"

"Oh, no. You are not going to 'nice' me into this, all of a sudden."

"Look, if you do it, then I'll owe you. Okay?"

"Owe me...like how owe me?"

"Owe you like I'll wear that red thing tonight."

They had a conversation with their eyes Ruth Anne knew from context she was glad to be spared from. She watched Joel slowly resign himself to that Maggie had won again. He sighed and, in a measured voice, said, "On the 27th of each month, one or both of us wakes in a place where we didn't go to sleep. We move. At night. In our sleep. We don't know how, we don't know why, and we never quite know where we'll end up, either. It's been going on for about two years. And, no, it doesn't make any sense, but, yes, we're serious, this absolutely happens. And apparently it happened last night."

"Wow, that worked fast," Maggie murmured, amused. "I'll have to remember that. And you think you routinely win arguments with me..."

"Well, you don't play fair. That much I know."

"I do so. And I'll try to make it feel like you won later tonight."

Ruth Anne moved to get the conversation back on track. "And as a consequence of this oddity, you two are in my guest room this morning? I see. I suppose."

"I tried to tell you about this once before, remember?" Maggie jumped in, feeling the believability of the story wavering with Ruth Anne. "I told you how he'd shown up in Juneau with no shoes that time."

"You've already *told* her about this stuff? And you made me tell her and look like an idiot and do it anyway? First you keep me up half the night last night on your little stake out, and now..."

"If you'd stayed awake like you were supposed to, maybe we'd have figured this out and wouldn't be sitting here. Anyway, you're the one who fell asleep early."

"*We* fell asleep, O'Connell. Both of us. And you were first, for the record. Curled up, with your head in my lap on the couch."

"We were taking turns. You were supposed to stay up that next hour and then we'd switch back. I had the next shift."

"We weren't 'taking turns,' there weren't any shifts; you got tired and told me to stay up while you took a nap. It was 4 am! I was exhausted. I have to go to work today!"

"I do hate to interrupt again, but I'm certain you two will manage to find ample time to argue again in the future. I believe you both - that you don't know why you're here - and, frankly, I don't think I care about the 'why' of it any longer. I would be happy to feed the both of you some pancakes with some of my blackberry preserves leftover from the summer. I don't usually make them because it's not worth troubling over for just one person. But you cannot bicker at my kitchen table. I didn't allow it of my boys, and I'm certainly not going to allow it of the two of you. Understood?"

They both nodded, looking a little cowed by her tone.

"Fine, then, I'll see you in the kitchen when you're up and ready." Ruth Anne turned to leave and paused in the doorway, turning back to look at them, still sitting side by side on her guest bed. "I know neither of you want to hear this, but you made a sweet picture, curled up together like you were." She smiled at them, watching Joel's fingertips stroke Maggie's knee, something he was doing mindlessly. They both flushed a little and had inscrutable looks on their faces. "Let's go have something to eat, shall we?"

She left them behind and headed down her hallway towards the kitchen. They had looked sweet together, close, but with spaces in their togetherness. That turn of phrase was one that hadn't crossed her mind in years - spaces in your togetherness where the winds of heaven can dance between. Or something like that. It was from a passage she'd found to use for her wedding vows, years ago, eschewing the standard Christian notion that she would ever become subsumed by a man - even Bill. For the first time, she placed the similarities - parallels of her marriage in Joel and Maggie's relationship. She was suddenly able to identify the fondness she felt for Joel - he reminded her of Bill. 

"Can I help with anything?" Maggie asked as she and Joel entered. "He's useless in the kitchen outside of making coffee, but I'd be happy to pitch in."

"You know what, O'Connell, I am not..."

Maggie turned and leaned in to kiss him softly, cutting him off. "I love you, but you are."

He smiled at her conciliatory gesture as she pulled back, his tone of voice softer as he added. "I can help do the dishes, at least." He smiled to himself, adding. "Well, dry them anyway."


	27. The Twenty-Seventh

March 27, 1995

On the bright side, Eugene and his wife had been out of town when Joel woke up in their bed. Not that it made it any less bizarre, but as soon as he'd figured it out, he was grateful to have avoided that kind of an unexplainable, awkward moment, especially after last time with Ruth Anne.

Even though it was another 27th of the month, he was totally discombobulated by waking up where he had today. The place was familiar, but the company - or, rather, lack thereof - was not. In all this time, in every instance, he'd been in this situation with Maggie. After roughly ten or fifteen repetitions, he figured that was sort of definitional, regardless of the many strange places they'd awoken. No matter what, they'd be together. And yet today, he'd woken alone.

He'd had to hunt around for framed family photos to confirm it was Eugene's at first because, though he recognized the place he woke, he didn't immediately put that together with its owner. He hadn't been inside this house since he'd moved in with Maggie, which was just over six months ago now. His cabin had sat empty a month and a half before Eugene asked Maggie if he could have the place since, "just between them," his family was about to grow again. Maggie was thrilled to have gossip, only to be irritated with Joel when he revealed not only that he knew already but that he'd known before Eugene.

Maggie, who was nowhere to be found, inside or out, in the cabin in which he now stood. He had even opened his old front door and saw a half inch of snow outside, unsullied by footprints or any other sign of human activity. She wasn't and hadn't ever been here this morning.

He had the truly strange opportunity to call his new house from his old one, glad that Maggie would still be at home, since she wasn't flying until later this week. By the tenth ring, he gave up on her answering. They hadn't agreed on who should record the greeting for their machine - only that, after two failed tries and an argument, they were definitely not going to record it together - and he knew it was back in its box on a high shelf in the closet. He waited ten minutes, feeling both strangely at home and totally out of place in this cabin. He called again, hoping he'd just caught her in the shower the first time, but she didn't answer.

One of two things had to have happened, he figured, opening his old front closet and finding snow boots that looked to be about his size. Either Maggie had woken alone and started searching for him or she'd woken somewhere strange and was herself trying to figure out how to start her week from another person's house. _Her_ old house probably. That made...well, if not sense, it made for synchronicity. Which was close enough in Cicely.

Joel pulled on the boots and took a coat out of the closet, closing the door gingerly. Eugene and his family wouldn't be back for a few days, and they didn't lock their door, per trusting Cicelian custom, so he'd just walk to his office, call home from there, and return these things after work, with Eugene none the wiser. He wasn't about to explain this to someone other than Maggie, unless he really, really had to. The incident with Ruth Anne had been awkward enough.

Even with the snow underfoot, the morning air wasn't cold and the walk was a familiar one. He liked their place, but he did miss this one from time to time. He'd lived there for four and a half years, after all. Longer than anywhere he'd lived but at his parents'. He crunched through the melting snow in Eugene's boots, which fit okay, if a little large. Joel amused himself thinking of Chris waxing poetic on KBHR about walking a mile - or 4, as it was - in another man's shoes, were this to happen to him. 

An hour or so later, he followed the road as it finally turned into Main Street. Not one to ever believe in signs or signals or the spiritual world portending events, he was overcome by a sudden and strange feeling. As he walked down the slight incline with the view of Cicely in front of him, he had the feeling that something was happening. 

With each step, the feeling got stronger and more unshakeable. He tried to tell himself it was just a delayed psychological reaction to the strange circumstances of this morning, but the more he tried to calm himself, the more neurotic he got, his subconscious seemingly convinced that something strange was going on. He thought of Maggie and started to worry that maybe something was wrong and that his worry stemmed from perceiving it.

Rational or not, his mind fixated on the thought and his footsteps quickened as he got more and more concerned. By the time he'd reached the buildings of town, he was running, worried he'd trip and fall in Eugene's too-big boots. He flew into the front door of his office and stopped short when he saw Marilyn and tried to force himself to adopt a more calm and casual demeanor. 

"Hey, Marilyn. O'Connell call?"

"No."

"Really?"

"No."

Joel turned to head into his office before pausing and turning around again.

"No...as in 'no, she didn't call' or no, as in 'no, I don't really mean no, I mean yes, she did call'?"

"No."

"Real informative. Thanks, Marilyn. I'll call her. Can you hand me the phone?"

She passed him the handset and he paused staring at her a few moments, looking at the dial pad within her arm's reach in a way he felt was fairly obvious. And yet nothing happened. Sometimes he wondered how long they could sit in a situation like that before she'd be the one to yield. Not that he had the patience to wait her out. "*And* could you dial my house?" Nothing happened but Joel being met with more unflinching and unreadable eye contact, so after a few seconds, he appended his request with, "please." 

She dialed, and for the third time that day, he was met with a seemingly unending series of unanswered rings. He got that same strange feeling again as he handed the phone back to Mairlyn to hang up. Surely she'd have gotten home by now.. 

"Can you try...hmmm...can you call Maurice?" Maybe Maggie'd gone over there on some pilot's escapade or to help Maurice with a home improvement project. Unlikely, but possible. She handed him back the phone, dialing.

"Maurice? It's Joel. 'Morning. Hey, O'Connell wouldn't happen to be there with you, would she?"

"Here? Right now?" Maurice's voice had a hearty chuckle in it that answered Joel's question without words.

"Yeah."

"Son, if a pretty woman were here with me this time of the morning, and her beau called looking for her, do you think I'd tell him the truth about that?"

"So that's...a no?"

"Whatever domestic discord you two are experiencing is your concern. I have some business to attend to. As should you."

He handed the phone back to Marilyn again. "I'm gonna run over to Ruth Anne's real quick. Any appointments this morning?" 

"No. 1:00. House call. That's it."

"When you booked that, did you tell them I don't do housecalls?"

"Yes. But you do."

"Only because you keep telling people I'll do it when they ask. Nevermind, I'll be right back."

Joel started across the street, remembering Eugene's boots as he heard them clomping across the road beneath him.

"You're wearing Eugene's coat, Dr. Fleischman! Looks nice."

Ed's ability to vacillate between total obliviousness and the ability to discern almost imperceptible detail was always amazing to Joel.

"I borrowed this from him. Ed; you seen O'Connell this morning?" 

Ed opened his mouth to answer but a voice from behind Joel beat him to it. "She had an early run to Anchorage this morning, Joel."

Joel felt relieved someone had an answer until he ran through the schedule Maggie kept on her desk in his mind. "No, she didn't. She's not going anywhere until Thursday, and then it's a Sitka mail run."

Ruth Anne finished walking to the cash register and leaned there over the counter facing him with that unflappable air of hers. "Well, she was at Holling's while I had breakfast earlier, cup of coffee in her hand, asking me if I had anything bound for Anchorage because she had a charter out of there later this morning. Seems to me she certainly did. Maybe something came up last minute, dear; you know how her schedule isn't her own sometimes." 

She paused and eyed him in a way that reminded him of his mother just before she'd wipe his face as a child with a Kleenex she'd wetted with her tongue. "You look a little...unkempt this morning. No tie today?"

"I woke up and...and O'Connell wasn't with me so I ran down here to see if anyone had seen her."

Ruth Anne's face softened a little. "Well, that's sweet of you to worry, Joel, but she was fine three hours ago. And I'm sure she's still fine now."

Joel shook his head, trying to shake the feeling that kept coming over him, that something was absolutely not fine and not normal with Maggie this morning. 

"Maybe a shower would have started your day off on a better footing, though." Ruth Anne's warm smile had started to fade back into that motherly look of disapproval.

Joel rolled his eyes and turned to Ed. "Can you drive me home? My truck's there. Apparently I've looked better."

"You look okay to me. Especially the coat. But sure. Ruth Anne?"

"Well...I suppose I can spare you for ten minutes. No longer, though. When you get back, I want you to get those videos organized finally. Alphabetically this time, Ed. No one else understands your categorization by director and genre. I can't tell you the complaints this week."

Ed left him at home with a wave and hurried back to Ruth Anne's. Joel did some preliminary checks around their house, trying to corroborate that Ruth Anne really had seen Maggie this morning and she really had been okay. A coffee mug dripped on their drying rack, freshly washed, and her toothbrush was wet, he noticed while waiting for the shower to warm up. His airplane boxers were on the top of the laundry hamper. She'd definitely woken up at home. It was strange she hadn't seemed terribly concerned with the fact he hadn't woken next to her. She'd neatly made her side of their bed, leaving his unmade, which she did when he forgot sometimes, her response always a bit like rubbing a dog's nose in its mistakes.

He showered, shaved, and changed into slacks, a shirt, and tie, ready to right and restart his day. Before he left again, he rummaged through their desk to check her flight booking schedule. She'd circled March 27 and scribbled "0900 - ANC" beneath it. 

Feeling crazy but at least clean, he drove himself back to work, detouring by Eugene's to replace his borrowed items. 

After arriving again at work, he and Marilyn worked in relative silence until 11:30, seeing only one unscheduled patient in that time. He decided to have lunch at the Brick before the house call Marilyn shouldn't have scheduled for him. 

While there, he listened to Chris aptly pondering coincidence on KBHR and made quiet small talk with Holling and more exuberant small talk with Shelly. Holling claimed to have served Maggie breakfast this morning, alongside Ruth Anne.

"And how was that run this morning, Joel?"

"Well, I wouldn't really call it a run. I jogged a little towards the end, I guess, but..."

"Maggie figured you were taking the long route today, it being Monday and all. Said you were gone when she woke up which was before the sun rose."

Well, that explained things a little. Even still, at every mention of Maggie, something felt off. 

"I don't know how you run in the dark like that. And you'd better be careful, especially in the springtime, running when the bears are emerging from hibernation. You're liable to get into a scrape with one, especially if you startle one by running."

"I think Dr. F. could take a bear," Shelly said, supportively, leaning around him to refill his water glass.

"I don't, Shelly, and that is exactly why I don't run early this time of year. Which O'Connell knows."

"Looks like it's gonna be a pretty day, Dr. F.!"

He tried to let Shelly's cheerfulness infect him a little. "Yeah, snow's melting a little, sun's out. How's Randi doing?"

"She is so cute, Dr. F., you wouldn't believe it! I think she's trying to talk!"

Joel smiled a little more. "Well, that's right on schedule, then. Don't be disappointed when she says Dada first, though. It's more common. Easier to say. Mama isn't ever too far behind it, though."

He drifted in and out of the conversation at the bar, still feeling like something was off. If Maggie had a 9:00 flight back, she'd be back in Cicely by noon. Surely she'd drop by this afternoon - she usually came by, especially if she'd had a flight, knowing how neurotic and nervous he was about her flying. Just this Friday, she'd been perched on Marilyn's desk, laughing as he came out to pretend to be annoyed that she was disrupting Marilyn's day.

"Marilyn, don't you have some filing to do," he'd asked, "or something more necessary to accomplish than giggling with O'Connell?" He knew that would get her hackles up - Maggie's at least. Marilyn had no hackles, best as he could tell.

"Giggling?" Maggie jumped up to look as offended as she could and point out what a dictatorial headache of a boss he must be, looking pointedly to Marilyn to back her up. Marilyn was already reaching for her knitting as Maggie's retort prompted Joel to respond, after which they were happily ensconced in bickering. She left a few minutes later when a patient arrived, shouting back at him to not be late for dinner, that they had a date that night. 

"I _live_ there. We have a date every night."

"Only if I'm in the mood to deal with you, we do. And they end better if you're being nice..."

She started to pull the door closed behind her as he called out, "O'Connell?"

She leaned back in. "Yeah?"

He felt Marilyn's eyes on him and himself blush, wanting to thank Maggie for the gesture of coming, knowing she'd done it to set his mind at ease. He really didn't want to incur any more of Marilyn's bemused nosyness. "Nothing, just...glad you got back on time."

She shot him a warm and knowing smile. "You're welcome, Fleischman." Marilyn smirked at him anyway as he turned around to walk into his exam room.

At the Brick, his mind drifted back to finishing his lunch before realizing how late the time had gotten. When he went back to his office, he found it locked, Marilyn's take on the standard half hour lunch break more nuanced than most people's. He unlocked the door and made his way to his desk. Feeling completely paranoid now, he flipped through his address book and called the number for Anchorage flight control, who not only knew which plane he'd be asking about based on who it was calling, but who confirmed her plane had left Anchorage at 9:23, bound for Cicely and had radioed its arrival 45 minutes ago. Just as it should have.

He was clearly worrying over nothing, and yet he still didn't feel right. He hung up to find a message from Marilyn sitting on his desk, her precisely coiled cursive letters spelling out the address to his 1:00 appointment. Irritated, he went to look up the street location before he realized it was Maurice's. Not only did he not intend to make a habit of housecalls, but he didn't appreciate one bit being booked for them by able-bodied people. Or ditched to go handle them alone by the woman who booked them, despite being entirely familiar with his policies on this topic.

He sighed, grabbed his bag and keys, and left, locking his office door again behind him, leaving the closed sign in place. At this rate, he might as well have just closed up all day today.

Arriving at Maurice's, he found the older man fussily working on tying and then retying his tie in the mirror beside his front door.

"You know what I like about you, son, you're punctual. I say 1:00, and you knock on my door at oh-thirteen-hundred."

"I'm glad you're happy, Maurice; I'm not. Why did you make this a housecall? I reserve those for people who literally cannot leave their homes. Marilyn knows that and should have told you."

"That little lady did exactly what you asked of her and refused me an appointment at first, but I needed you here urgently and explained that, so she relented. Now." Satisfied finally with the lie of his necktie, he turned to Joel. "We're having a town meeting at 1:30. I need you to come with me."

"No. No, no, no. I'm working, Maurice. I have patients. If I leave Marilyn alone long enough, she starts practicing medicine. No. I'm sure you can handle whatever is going on just fine by yourself."

"This isn't a request, Joel, this is a demand. An order." Maurice paused to pull a sport coat on, turning to smooth its lapels in the mirror. "Anyway, it's a public health issue. And you're my featured expert."

"Maurice, I don't have time for whatever this is. You don't own my schedule anymore, and you can't just unilaterally decide to..."

Maurice's keys were already in his hand and an impatient and irritated look was on his face as Joel trailed off. How he lost almost every battle he took on, regardless of the opponent, he'd never understand. He'd always thought of himself as a self-possessed and forceful person, but with every interaction like this, he questioned that more and more.

"Fine. You've got the rest of the hour you booked me for. That's it. What's going on?"

Maurice spent the car ride speechifying, as he did, about some issue related to water supply, the upshot of which being that Maurice had gotten it into his head that he'd seek a federal grant for a water tower, something which he'd need to whip up enough civic support for that he'd need a populace suddenly nervous about clean water - the topic Joel was now expected to extemporaneously speak about at the meeting they were fast approaching.

Cars packed the area around the church, and Joel marveled at Maurice's ability to get the rest of the town to say how high when he said jump. At least he'd finally get to see Maggie and tell the only person he really could about where he'd woken up this morning. And set his mind to rest by finally seeing her.

As he and Maurice walked in from the Cadillac, he tried to get Maurice to level with him about what was driving his suspiciously benevolent motivations. 

"Believe me, Maurice, I'm the biggest supporter in the world of a clean water supply, but the town's hardly on the verge of suffering from a mass outbreak of cholera simply because most people here drink well water. Not to mention that it seems wholly inconsistent with your libertarian leanings to accept tax money for anything short of a refund. Let me guess, you'd act as general contractor and pay yourself a generous portion of this grant?"

They stopped at the door of the church, and Maurice turned towards Joel. "I'm lying about the tower, Joel." The older man reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumple of white, handing it to Joel.

"This is from Maggie. You'd better put this on, too." He took a dark item of fabric that Joel hadn't noticed was draped across his arm and handed it to Joel, before giving his shoulder a fatherly squeeze and him a fond smile, both of which felt strange coming from Maurice.

He watched Maurice's retreating form disappear through the front door of the church, totally mystified. Today could not get stranger if it tried. Joel looked at the clothing item he'd been handed, recognizing it as a sport coat of his. The creased item, upon more thorough inspection, was paper - a small bit of oragami, with Maggie's neat, careful handwriting along the edge - _open me_.

Feeling that same strange disquieting sensation he'd been feeling all morning, he carefully undid the paper's many tight and angular folds, finally flattening it out in his hands. Inside, he found four words, also in her handwriting - _I changed my mind._ Only then did he realize what he'd unfolded was a crane. And start to realize what was going on.

Feeling like he was sleepwalking, he made his way to the door and opened it, stepping inside the entryway which stood empty. He shrugged into his coat, a flower pinned to its lapel, and made his way to the interior doors, wishing he'd put on slightly nicer pants this morning. Though he knew what to expect on the other side, he paused a moment with one hand against the wood, trying to make sense of any of this. He folded and pocketed her note and leaned forward against the door to push it open.

Inside, the room was filled with white and pastel-colored paper cranes, hanging by the hundreds from the rafters of the ceiling, and the air was filled with the cheerful din of chatter. Chris, dressed in black, was leaning against the podium at the front. He smiled when he saw Joel, which caused the people packing the pews and lining the walls of the church to quiet and turn towards him. He barely saw them, his eyes fixed at the front of the room, on Maggie, who stood next to Chris.

She grinned at him when his eyes met hers. She had a small bundle of flowers in her hand and she gave him a little wave with the fingertips clutched around it. The ring that had been hidden in his sock drawer the last eight months now sparkled on her finger - he hadn't hidden it well enough. Not from her, at least. _The nosiest person I know with zero concept of boundaries_ , he recalled, smiling. His brain finally started to catch up with his eyes, as he put it together. He walked to the front of the room, towards her, only faintly aware of the eyes still on him, watching him move. He'd notice people in his periphery - Marilyn, Ruth Anne, Hayden, Shelly - but he couldn't take his eyes off of Maggie and the way was smiling at him. 

When he reached the front, she stepped down and handed her flowers to Ed, who sitting in the front most pew nearest her. She took Joel's hands in hers and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Hope you don't mind. I'm not a huge fan of long engagements."

"You found the ring?"

"Months ago. I like it. It's surprisingly tasteful and pretty."

He pulled back to look at her, still in a state of disbelief. "But...but you were in Anchorage? Like, 3 hours ago."

She nodded and said, "I had a last minute charter - they only booked me last week," before gesturing behind him. He turned to see his parents sitting in the first pew; his mother was somehow both smiling broadly at him while looking on the verge of tears. "Your mom keeps secrets much better than you do."

"Am I the only one who didn't know this was happening today?"

Maggie smiled again, reaching both hands up to fuss with Joel's tie. "It wouldn't have been as fun if I'd told you."

"But when did you...*how* did you...and...are you sure you want to..."

"Fleischman," she said with mock exasperation as she finished with his tie, tightened the knot, and put her hand on his shoulder. "All these people are sitting here patiently, hoping at some point you will stop talking so they can watch us get married. I'll answer any question you have about my subterfuge afterwards. Now, shall we?"

\-----

March 27, 1995 would have been the 27th time that Maggie and Joel woke up together in a strange situation on the 27th of the calendar month. Instead, they woke up apart, only one of them aware it was the last day they'd wake up single. The coincidence of the date was just that, she claimed - a coincidence. She hadn't even considered the day until he told her later where he'd awoken that morning. She'd been caught up in catching him unawares, focused on a Monday only because she figured she had a better chance of having him leave early to run. Her original plan had been to do it the Monday prior, but she couldn't get his parents there in time.

She had decided to marry Joel walking hand in hand down his parents' street in December. It wasn't that she was suddenly willing to compromise for him - she just realized she wanted to make the bond official, too - make them family. She had finally come to understand that a conventional marriage was never going to be what faced she and Joel because of who they were and what they had together. But her yes coincided with his making peace with that she'd never make it official with him and resolution to stop bothering her with the question. 

In the weeks that followed, she'd debated the best way to tell him she'd changed her mind, ultimately deciding to surprise him. She'd invoked the support of the entire town and of his parents, creating cover story upon cover story, to ensure he'd get all the way to the church without realizing. And she'd managed to do it. His logical, pattern-detecting brain had gotten signals enough to know something was strange, but she'd covered things in misdirection well enough that he'd truly not known until he'd seen her note. His stunned and elated expression as he opened the door was just as burned into her memory as how she looked at the front of the chapel was in his. 

They never quite unraveled they 'why' or the 'how' of what had happened to them those roughly two years when they seemed to have the ability to move in their sleep, sometimes across impossible distances. All they knew was that they never woke up in unexpected places again - not on the 27th or any other day. Minus the odd overnight in another city or infrequent fight where Joel ended up on their couch, Maggie and Joel always woke side by side together each morning. Whether it was fate or coincidence that had led them down the winding path to get there didn't matter anymore, and as the years together went on, that strange time mostly faded from their memories.

Although, and as always, if they'd been a little more observant and a little less absorbed in themselves and leveraging arguing into foreplay, they'd actually gotten an explanation.

After the wedding, as news made its way around, cards congratulating them on their marriage began to arrive. Most were traditional missives prewritten on Hallmark's best, but a few stood out as strange and unique - particularly and not unexpectedly, Adam and Eve's contribution (an expensive-looking made-paper card monogrammed with an ornate embossed silver "E," inside of which was scrawled, "Maggie - may it be the first of many; Joel - you me forty-three dollars. - Adam," which appeared inside their mailbox with no stamp). Jed's contribution, too, was noteworthy - addressed only to Maggie saying his offer would always stand in Grosse Pointe when she finally came to her senses. Another odd one had been a simple postcard of Alaskan peaks, unsigned but for a quote.

"Hey, Fleischman, listen to this," Maggie had said, entering their home a few weeks after the wedding, unceremoniously dumping a pile of mail on their shared desk as he watched her from his chair in their living room. Two letters at the bottom of the pile slurped from beneath it to fall to the ground.

"Just toss that crap anywhere, O'Connell, really. Don't mind that I cleaned that up yesterday or anything."

"You wanna hear this or not?"

"Depends on what 'it' is."

"Wedding card."

"Another one? How many friends do we have?"

"I have more than you do. And your attitude is why, if you've ever wondered." She tossed her leather knapsack back in the direction of the door, nudged his legs off the ottoman with her knees, and proceeded to perch herself where they'd been as she read.

" _Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand of it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together - all things connect._ " She smiled at him expectantly.

"That's it?"

She glared back.

"What? I mean, it's nice, but..." he offered meekly. "Who sent it?"

Her glare turned playful. "You don't recognize it do you? I knew it."

"Uh..."

"It's that quote of Chief Seattle's that I love - about the earth belonging to and linking us all." His eyeroll in reponse to her pause caused irritation to enter her voice as she continued. "It's only one of my favorite speeches. Of course you don't recognize it."

His eyes sparkled a little as he considered his response for a few seconds. "Oh, but I do. You shouted it at me in front of an entire film crew - and Ed - when we'd known each other all of about 2 weeks, in which time you'd already decided I was...how did you so sweetly put it...'a materialistic, short-sighted subhuman'?"

She grinned. "You _do_ remember. I'm impressed. And see? I've always been a quick and accurate judge of character. Even back then."

"You do know that's a misattributed quote, don't you?"

"What do you mean? It's not."

"It is. It was dreamed up for a film. That speech never happened. Or, rather, he didn't say that in the speech he did make."

Her mouth fell open, an indignant look taking over her expression. "He absolutely did."

"O'Connell. The full speech talks about bison and trains, neither of which were anywhere near Washington or the Pacific Northwest at that time."

"He was probably speaking metaphorically," she said, sounding unconvinced. "Did you look this up or something?"

"Some script writer dreamed it up to use in a terrible movie about ecology that got made in the 70s and quickly forgotten. It just feels better to associate it with that guy so that's what's happened over time. Collective societal misattribution. Happens a lot, actually." He used her momentary silence to append things with. "Really. Look it up."

"You're wrong." He could tell from her eyes that she knew he wasn't. But that she wished he was. "And anyway, it's beautiful."

He decided to back off the argument a little, or at least send it down a different path. "It is. It's just not very...wedding-ey."

"And why not?"

"It's about land use and ecology. Which, don't get me wrong, are both noble and necessary pursuits. But hardly romantic concepts."

"Like you're a fitting judge for what qualifies as romantic, Fleischman. And anyway, it _is_ romantic. And poignant. And poetic. And directly related to our collective history. And a favorite of mine and..."

He'd sat forward in his chair to move closer to her, looking more and more amused the more irritated she got. "...and...and...and..." His voice had a gentle conciliatory tone as he wrapped his arms around her and murmured quietly in her ear. "It's a nice card. Really. And an even nicer memory. I love you, you know."

"Is it really a misattributed quote?" Her voice sounded a little disarmed and unsure.

"Would you like it less if it was?" he asked, his lips against her neck. 

"Yeah." Her hands were in his hair now, the postcard precariously balanced on her knees.

He smiled as she relaxed against him. "Okay. Then it's not." She put her lips to his and pushed him back into his seat, following him into his chair as he fell back, straddling his lap. The postcard fluttered to the floor, coming to rest under the furniture, to be forgotten for years until they redecorated their living room.

Misattributed or not, the quote had been one of Soapy Sanderson's favorites as well. It had been, as they both had recalled, the same one Joel had been reading for the camera crew when Maggie stormed in, furious about the land deal he'd tried to make with their bequest. Land they still owned, now jointly, and which they never quite agreed what to do with. Land which was one of the first things that had entangled Joel permanently with Alaska and with Maggie. Land they were left by a man who'd told Joel that feisty women never got boring (he was right, of course). A man who'd written that Maggie's only real shortcoming was that she didn't take chances on the right men, purposely picking ones with whom it wouldn't work to protect herself from heartbreak. A man who'd made Joel promise to think more seriously about his future. A man who'd bequeathed them the wine which opened their eyes to the fact that they both felt something they didn't want to admit but couldn't ever quite stop thinking about again. 

The same man whose handwriting was on the card that now sat beneath Joel's chair and whose land had only legally become theirs once the lengthy Alaska probate process was finalized back on January 27, 1993...


End file.
